John Ross at Bubba

Last night I got the night off work, even though I've only just started back, to go and see John Ross give a talk at Bubba, a little cafe/bar place on Albert Road. I'm so glad I went, was fascinating not only to hear about the Zapatistas but also to see such a consummate storyteller go through his paces. It somewhat reminded me of my visit to Swansea to see Ken Kesey with Neil, another memorable occasion. Next stop, see Noam Chomsky speak!
The guy is quite a character, I was surprised to see how frail he looked when I arrived. Wearing a Mexican white shirt with embroidery around the neck, his brown leather waistcoat and blue jeans kind of reminded me of my dad. His face looked like he had been through a lot in his life, wrinkled and light tan in colour with a strong nose, a white goatee beard and one eye larger than the other. This was due to a beating by police in which he lost his retina, but "I am not a victim" he said. He talked for a long while, I am not sure of time but he held my attention throughout, I was sitting close and he spoke with intensity and passion, using a battered old eyeglass to see the printed texts of poems and extracts he sometimes read from. He talked mainly about the Zapatistas, the reason for the lecture tour and the centre of his work for the last eleven years or more. But interspersed with tales of the achievements towards autonomy of indigenous Mexican Indians were autobiographical anecdotes giving flesh and life to the politics of Mexico and Latin America.
"I'm a poet at heart" he said and along with his two most recent books, on the life and death of the US Left and the latest in his chronicles of the Zapatista struggle and reform, was a volume of poetry printed in Mexico City titled "Against Amnesia". Powerful personal poems dealing with the injustices and triumphs of Latin America, including one about the late Cuban pianist Ruben Gonzalez, are within as well as black and white photographic portraits of Ihuatzio elders. In fact the occasion made me wish I could have taken some shots of Ross himself, exuding energy and with his wizened, battle hardened features he would make the perfect subject for not only a posed portrait but some animated shots of him mid talk.
Once he had finished some questions lead to more discussion about the situation now US attention is distracted by the Middle East and Left wingers are gaining power all over Latin America, as well as the recounting of some details of the human shield operation in Baghdad, which he joined in Istanbul and which Pete Van Dyke was also part of. Some brief comments were made by Pete but I felt that he was taking a back seat at this meeting, letting John 'do his stuff'. A throng of people gathered around to get copies of the few books he had with him and I'm sure he would have sold a lot more if he had had enough copies to go round. As it is I managed to get copies of the two I mentioned earlier "Against Amnesia" and "The War Against Oblivion". I bought Tab a copy of "Murdered by Capitalism", I'm sure I can borrow it from her when she has finished it. I am really looking forward to reading about the Left in the US, a subject about which I know little but am ready to delve into. He signed the books of poetry with a quote "la poesia es el pan de todos" "poetry is the bread of everyone". He was quite happy to sign all the books, though I wasn't really after an autograph, to see him talking was I think quite enough to make the evening a memorable one both for the experience itself and as a catalyst to find out more about the situation in Latin America in which the past plays such an integral part.