Sixth Commission of the EZLN
Mexico

December 2019.

To the National Indigenous Congress – Indigenous Governing Council:
To the individuals, groups, collectives and organizations of the Sixth in Mexico and internationally:
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:
To film-lovers everywhere:

Considering, first and only, that:

A WHALE IN THE MOUNTAINS OF SOUTHEASTERN MEXICO

(Creatures and their Creators)

You have no idea how you ended up here in this place, though it seems it’s becoming something of a habit… “The traditions and customs of cityfolk,” you remember the late SupMarcos saying. You also remember how annoying he found those sarcastic comments…well, not just those comments. The afternoon has given way to evening. You stop, noticing in the distance a red, five-pointed star at the top of a mountain, with an enormous sign with so many letters that you can’t make out its message. Even more distant, you can make out the blue-gray silhouette of a braying horse with huge, illuminated letters that state, laconically: “TULAN KAW ZAPATISTA.”

At the entrance, the girl who guided you through that first impossible movie theater and her gang of kids approach you. You’re not sure whether to run, pretend not to know them, or freeze and see what happens. Any semblance of a strategy collapses because the girl takes you by the hand and chastises you: “Late again.”

You all cross through a wide flat space that appears to be set up like a county fair. You take a winding route through dozens of different “stations,” each booth with its own light-and-sound show, people dressed up as monsters, circus performers, and trapeze artists; over here there’s someone teaching art, and over there you can hear music, singing and dancing. People crowd together at their favorite “station”, laughing and shouting with delight and surprise, and, of course, taking selfies. At the edge of the path through the stations there’s a huge screen. You’re about to say, “Looks like a drive-in theater,” but a nearby sign reads: “Walk-In Theater. Tonight: Cantinflas and Manuel Medel in Águila o Sol[i]. Tomorrow: Piporro and Pedro Infante in Ahí viene Martín Corona[ii].”

The girl leads you through the zigzagging path. Up ahead, a strange being, like a cat or a dog, is flanked on both sides by other girls and boys all talking at the same time.

You try to make out what they’re saying, but just then you see a huge banner with the face of…Boris Karloff?[iii] made up like the monster from Frankenstein, with a coffee cup in one hand and a half-eaten sweet bun in the other. The banner’s text repeats an ancient truism: “Nothing like coffee and a snack to bring you back to life.” Farther on another sign reads: “Maxillofacial Surgery. Get your best face and an irresistible smile!” with images of the monster from Alien from the series’ various prequels and sequels. You instinctively evaluate the cheeks from each version and shudder.

Amidst lots of brightly-colored lights there is a long mess hall (you can make out signs reading “ZAPATISTAS” and “WELCOME”). You’re about to say that it’s a bit chilly and that a hot coffee and a snack wouldn’t hurt when you see on one of the walls another banner with Edward James Olmos’ face announcing, “Soft-boiled sushi. Origami classes. Pest control. Bow ties. Gaff & Company.” Higher up, as if suspended from the ceiling, there’s an animated image of the geisha from Blade Runner. You pause for a moment trying to guess how such a novelty is possible, but the crowd behind you pushes you forward.

Almost at the end of the winding route of “stations,” there’s a table with a large model of what appears to be a future construction and a sign reading “Theater Project” with a collection box labeled “Anonymous Donations.” Behind an artisan shop nearby you see an image of a Facehugger advertising scarves and sleep eye-masks for sale.

Before you lies a path studded with lights and the silhouette of a large red star, and amidst some rubble, apparently placed there on purpose, flash images of a dystopian backdrop. The flickering lights barely illuminate the forest around you and the mountain above. Instead of individual trees, it’s as if the Zapatistas had strung the entire mountaintop with lights and the trees were merely branches on that great, hulking pine.

You decide that it would be best to turn around; nothing normal happens in Zapatista territory… at least, not to you. Every time you’ve come you’re left feeling somewhat discontent with and skeptical of yourself, and it takes you several days of your regular routine in the city to feel normal again. So you take a few steps back, looking for an opportunity to turn around without the boys and girls seeing you…

But then you see it, and stop dead in your tracks.

You tell yourself you’ve seen everything – that’s what the internet and its bandwidth are for – but what you’re seeing now is so illogical that… Well, you grab your cell phone and try to take a panoramic photo but you realize immediately that it’s impossible. You would need a satellite to capture the whole scene, because it’s clear that all of it is part of a puzzle and that to put it together you’d have to walk… and close your eyes.

But when you open your eyes, it’s still there. An enormous structure. A sort of huge hangar which, in seeming defiance of the laws of physics, extends back until it gets lost in the trees and the moist mountain surface. It’s like a galley whose figurehead is a red, five-pointed star. You wouldn’t be surprised if, in your peripheral vision, tons of small windows opened and dozens, hundreds, thousands of oars came out… and if inside, “writing in the sea[iv],” was the one-armed man of Lepanto.[v] It looks like a galleon, or a whaling ship… No, more like a lost whale who, trying to swim against the current, up the mountainside, has taken a rest among the trees and people—a lot of people, of all sizes and all colors. Even though most of them have their faces covered, their clothes are like a kaleidoscope moving around the great whale, absurd here in its stopover halfway up the mountain, just as everything that happens here is absurd.

No, it didn’t occur to you that this might be the “Pequod,”[vi] but rather the legendary whale from Moby Dick with which Gregory Peck[vii] and Herman Melville were obsessed.

You’ve seen several signs that say “Film Festival,” but you haven’t seen any references to John Huston’s film or Melville’s novel. Then you remember something the Zapatistas once said: “We are speaking for another time. Our words will be understood in other calendars and geographies.” Even so, you are willing to respond with “Call me Ishmael”[viii] if anyone asks your name, but then you notice three large banners covering one side of the structure. On the middle banner, embroidered with images of rope and spears, you read:

Trempülkalwe

“That’s the Mapuche language, Mapudungun,” you hear someone explain to someone else. A little above that line the banner reads “MARICHEWEU! Ten, one hundred, one thousand times we will win.” As if to ratify that statement, ten, one hundred, one thousand masked people swarm around you, Zapatista young people, men, women, and otroas—the rowers on this paradoxical and good-spirited old galley—whose very existence, whose lives, seem to point to a triumph over a past that promised them nothing but death and oblivion.

You encounter this Mapuche cry of resistance and rebellion here in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast. Why does Zapatismo greet that originary people in this manner in these lands? Why the effort to take an ancestral history of resistance and rebellion from the continent’s southern tip and plant it here in these mountains—a place called “Tulan Kaw” (“strong horse” in Tojolabal and Tzeltal)—creating an irrational and anachronistic link between two resistances and rebellions with the same objective, the defense of mother earth?

You’re trying to decipher that puzzle when the kid gang pushes you into the belly of the whale…okay, fine, the auditorium. Inside there are lots of wood benches arranged in tiers following the slope of the mountain, and a stage with tables, three screens (the Zapatista version of 3D), speakers, and a bunch of cables spilling out like entrails.

“Wait for us here. We’re going to go get some popcorn,” the little girl tells you. You start to say that you didn’t see any popcorn vendors but the kid gang has disappeared, exiting the belly of the whale…okay, okay, the auditorium. While you wait you look around the inside of the building. There are beings of all sorts on the benches, and on stage are people who, you assume, make films. They are talking about film as if responding to questions that, as far as you can tell, nobody has asked… at least, nobody you can see. Or maybe they’re just talking to themselves.

The little girl and her gang come running back in, all carrying bags of popcorn. The little girl gives you a bag and explains, “I only put a little bit of salsa on them so you wouldn’t get a stomach ache.” The entrance of the kid gang serves like a signal and the rest of the crowd leaves en masse. The people on stage heave a sigh of relief. One confesses, “Phew! Now I remember why I chose to work in film!” Another says, “This is like a horror film mixed with a thriller and a science fiction flick. I fear the screenplay holds nothing good in store for me.” And another adds, “To be honest, I didn’t know how to answer her, she just had too many questions.” “True,” says still another, “it’s like being on trial but without a defense attorney… and knowing you’re guilty.”

The little girl whispers in your ear, “If SupGaleano comes looking for us, you tell him that we’ve been here the whole time, that you brought the popcorn yourself from the city and shared it with us. Even if he’s angry, don’t give in, remain firm! Resistance and rebellion, you know.” Just then you hear over the loudspeaker: “Please report any information or tips on the location of one cat-dog, wanted for theft of strategic material from the office of the General Command. The suspect tends to travel in the company of a gang of kids who… okay fine, forget the kids, but the cat-dog is unmistakable.” The aforementioned, with what you could swear is a mischievous smile, burrows into the little girl’s lap.

You are weighing the wisdom of lying to a Subcomandante when everyone comes back in with fragrant bags of popcorn and takes their seats. From the stage, someone says, “Nobody has any frivolous questions? I mean, to get back to normalcy and make everyone believe that this is a film festival like any other.”

“Would you look at that,” you say to yourself, “a film festival where explanations, reason, and reflection are expected. As if a great big question mark had appeared on the screen and everyone (todas, todos, todoas) was expecting…what are they expecting? The little girl responds with a confession, “See, the thing is, we’re all kind of happy that these people who make film came here, because what if they are sad or their hearts anxious because they don’t know where these things they created ended up? It’s a good point, right? So we invited them to come and tell us if they are okay, or not okay, or depends. Maybe they’ll even start to dance and eat popcorn and their hearts will be glad,” the little girl says with her mouth full and her cheeks stained bright with salsa.

It seems like there’s an intermission, so everyone, including you, leaves the building. To your surprise, there is now a mobile popcorn vendor outside followed by a long curving line of kids waiting their turn, like a comet with a trail of lights. It looks like there’s another vendor a little ways off, and you can make out another still further away. You get in line and once you have your bag of popcorn you stare in wonder at the absurd movie theater with its rebellious inclinations, challenging all logic and the law of gravity itself…

The mythical Mapuche whale, Mocha Dick, swimming up the mountain, with all these people in its wake… “and mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air,” (Moby Dick. Herman Melville, 1851).

The irreverent cetacean as part of the jigsaw puzzle.

Film as something more, much more, than a movie.

As if all this were just part of a bigger jigsaw puzzle, you see a giant poster announcing a dance festival, another about the defense of territory and mother earth, another about an international gathering of women who struggle, another about a birthday, and signs, lots of them, signaling bathrooms, showers, internet, supplies, “a world where many worlds fit,” the Junta de Buen Gobierno (Good Government Council), the Zapatista Autonomous Municipality in Rebellion, the Information and Vigilance Commission… at this point you wouldn’t be surprised to run into Elías Contreras, sitting and smoking outside a hut with “Investigation Commission” inscribed over the doorway.

You detect a lot of loose pieces. There are some people who can only be differentiated from the locals because they have a nametag that reads “National Indigenous Congress” and, of course, they don’t have their faces covered. There are also “citizens” or “cityfolk,” which is what Zapatismo calls those who live or at least survive in the city. You’re exasperated to realize there are and will be many more pieces. It’s as if Zapatismo has set out to challenge humanity with enigmas…or with the silhouette of a world, another world.

It’s as if your life mattered to someone you don’t even know. Someone for whom you may have done much, or a little, or nothing, but who takes you into account in any case. It’s as if only now do you realize that this “Caracol of Our Lives” includes you and yours…ten, one hundred, one thousand times over.

This piece of the puzzle, film, like life, takes place inside a whale injured on both sides, swimming upstream in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast…

But that’s impossible… isn’t it?

-*-

Given the above, the EZLN’s Sixth Commission invites the men, women, otroas, children, and elders of the Sexta, the CNI, and the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion around the world, as well as those film fanatics who can and want to come, to the Film Festival:

“PUY TA CUXLEJALTIC”

(“Caracol of Our Lives”)

The second edition of which will be held in the Zapatista Caracol of Tulan Kaw, in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast, December 7-15, 2019.

The film schedule and festival activities will be posted at the Festival.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,

SupGaleano,
Chasing after the most terrible mutation of Xenomorph: the Cat-Dog.
What? Well, because he stole my popcorn. And film without popcorn is like… how can I explain it?
Like tacos without salsa, like Messi without a ball, like a donkey without a rope, like a penguin without a tux, like Sherlock without Watson, like Donald Trump without Twitter (or vice versa)…
wha? Okay, that was another bad example.
Mexico, December 2019

[i]   Águila o Sol (1937): One of the first films starring Mexican comic Cantinflas.
[ii] Here Comes Martin Corona (1952): Mexican comedy Western starring Pedro Infante.
[iii] Stage name for William Henry Pratt [1887-1969], a British actor who played Frankenstein’s monster in the original 1931 film.
[iv] To row.
[v] Miguel de Cervantes, whose lost use of his left arm after a suffering a gunshot wound in the naval Battle of Lepanto against the Ottoman fleet.
[vi] The fictional 19th-century whaling ship that appears in the 1851 novel, Moby Dick.
[vii] Peck starred in John Huston’s 1956 film Moby Dick as Captain Ahab.
[viii] Chapter One of Moby Dick begins with the words «Call me Ishmael,» as narrated by the only surviving crewmember of the Pequod.

To the peoples of Mexico and of the world:
To the national and international Sixth:
To the CIG support networks:
To the press:

Capitalism is a world economic system which has, since its birth, operated against human life and our mother earth. Its logic of accumulation and profit can only be reproduced through the ever-increasing exploitation of human labor and permanent dispossession of the land and territory of all of the peoples of the world, especially originary peoples.

In its current neoliberal phase, capitalism takes on ever more monstrous forms, declaring open war against humanity and the earth, our mother. Its current economic model is based on the global reach and dominance of financial capital over peoples, nations, and entire continents. Sustained by massive military and extractivist industries, this system’s insatiable logic of capitalist accumulation and consumption is fueled through real or fictitious wars, the proliferation of organized crime, as well as foreign invasions and coup d’états, putting the very conditions for human existence on the planet at risk.

Furthermore, the current system has intensified the patriarchal organization it inherited from previous systems and civilizations, becoming a violent enemy not only of humanity in general but of women and our mother earth in particular. That is, the exploitation of and deep structural violence against women are characteristic of capitalism, although they were born before it. Private property, the basis of the capitalist system, can’t be understood or explained except as part of a patriarchal system of domination over women and the earth.

(Continuar leyendo…)

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A los pueblos del mundo

A las Redes de Resistencia y Rebeldía

A la Sexta Nacional e Internacional

A los medios de comunicación

Los que somos pueblos, naciones, tribus y barrios del Congreso Nacional Indígena – Concejo Indígena de Gobierno y el Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, condenamos los siguientes hechos que a continuación presentamos.

Denunciamos el ataque a las comunidades originarias del pueblo nahua de San Mateo Cuanalá, San Lucas Nextetelco, San Gabriel Ometoxtla, Santa María Zacatepec y la colonia José Ángeles, del municipio de Juan C. Bonilla, cuando el pasado 30 de octubre fueron reprimidas con golpes y balas de goma, incluso en contra de niños, mujeres y personas de la tercera edad, por la policía federal, la policía estatal de Puebla y la Guardia Nacional.

 

 

El despliegue de las fuerzas represivas en contra de los compañeros, es para concretar el envenenamiento del río Metlapanapa como parte del llamado Proyecto Integral para la Construcción del Sistema de Alcantarillado Sanitario de la Zona Industrial de Huejotzingo, Puebla, conocido como “Ciudad Textil”, mismo que forma parte del megaproyecto de infraestructura urbano-industrial conocido como Proyecto Integral Morelos, el cual ya cobró la vida del compañero Samir Flores.

 

Condenamos el cobarde ataque que sufrió la comunidad wixárika y tepehuana de San Lorenzo de Azqueltán, en el municipio de Villa Guerrero, Jalisco, el pasado 3 de noviembre a manos de los caciques Fabio Ernesto Flores Sánchez (alias La Polla), Javier Guadalupe Flores Sánchez y Mario Flores, quienes a bordo de tres camionetas y acompañados de gente armada emboscaron a los comuneros y autoridades; actuando con completa impunidad, golpearon hasta dejar gravemente heridos a los compañeros Ricardo de la Cruz González, Noé Aguilar Rojas y Rafael Reyes Márquez, quienes se encuentran recibiendo atención médica.

Estos intentos de homicidio, que permanecen descaradamente impunes, son orquestados para detener la digna e histórica lucha por la tierra, misma que ambicionan quienes se sienten, por ser dueños del dinero, dueños de la región y que han contado siempre con la plena complicidad de instancias de gobierno que buscan hacer negocios millonarios con la tierra comunal, pretendiendo borrar de la historia al pueblo tepecano.

Exigimos la presentación con vida de los compañeros Carmelo Marcelino Chino y Jaime Raquel Cecilio del Frente Nacional por la Liberación de los Pueblos en el estado de Guerrero, quienes se encuentran desaparecidos desde el pasado 22 de octubre, luego de que salieran con dirección a la localidad de Huamuchapa, procedentes de Acapulco. Este acto criminal se suma a la criminalización, persecución, asesinato y desaparición de quienes en el estado de Guerrero y en todo México luchan por el respeto a los territorios indígenas en contra de la devastación capitalista.

Asímismo, denunciamos la detención y desaparición por varias horas del compañero Fredy García del Comité de Defensa de Derechos Indígenas (CODEDI), a manos de agentes policiacos de Oaxaca, luego de que asistiera a una presunta reunión de trabajo con funcionarios de gobierno, acusándolo de cargos absurdos para criminalizar la digna lucha de CODEDI y del compañero Fredy García en contra del despojo y la represión capitalistas. ¡¡Exigimos la libertad inmediata e incondicional de nuestro compañero Fredy García!!

Los capitalistas, sus cárteles y sus gobiernos, imponen la muerte con grupos armados para despojar a los pueblos indígenas, sean del mal gobierno, grupos de choque o delincuentes. Para nosotros los pueblos es la violencia, el terror y la indignación; para ellos la impunidad y la garantía de que sus crímenes se traducirán en ganancias a costa de pueblos enteros.

Atentamente

 

Noviembre de 2019

 

Por la Reconstitución Integral de Nuestros Pueblos

Nunca Más Un México Sin Nosotros

 

Congreso Nacional Indígena

Concejo Indígena de Gobierno

Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional

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Celebration of Life: A December of Resistance and Rebellion
SIXTH COMMISSION of the EZLN
Mexico

November 2019.

To the women who struggle all over the world:
To the National Indigenous Congress-Indigenous Governing Council:
To the National and International Sixth:
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion or whatever you call them:
To all those who feel convoked by any of these activities:

Compañeras, compañeros, compañeroas:
Sisters, brothers, hermanoas:

The EZLN’s Sixth Commission invites you to the:

Celebration of Life: A December of Resistance and Rebellion

Including the following activities:

“Puy Ta Cuxlejaltic” Film Festival
Second Edition

To be held December 7-14, 2019, at the following locations:

Caracol Jacinto Canek (in CIDECI, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico)

Caracol Espiral digno tejiendo los colores de la humanidad en memoria de l@s caídos (Spiral of Dignity Weaving the Colors of Humanity in Memory of the Fallen), (in Tulan Ka´u, on the San Cristóbal de las Casas-Comitán de Domínguez highway, halfway between those two cities, 40 minutes from either one, driving with caution).

Program and participants to be announced at a later date.

Register to attend at the following address:

segundofestivalcine@ezln.org.mx

-*-

First CompArte for Dance: “Dance Another World”

To be held December 15-20, 2019, at:

Caracol Jacinto Canek (in CIDECI, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico)

Register to participate or attend at the following addresses:

participanteprimercompartedanza@ezln.org.mx

asistenteprimercompartedanza@ezln.org.mx

-*-

Forum in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth

To be held December 21-22, 2019.

The National Indigenous Congress, which is organizing this event with the support of the EZLN’s Sixth Commission, will provide details.

To be held at:

Caracol Jacinto Canek (in CIDECI, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico).

-*-

NOTE: The following event is only for women who struggle:

Second Gathering of Women Who Struggle

To be celebrated December 26-29, 2019, at:

The Semillero “Huellas del Caminar de la Comandanta Ramona” (In the Footprints of Comandanta Ramona) in the Caracol Torbellino de Nuestras Palabras (Whirlwind of our Words), Tzots Choj zone (community of Morelia, MAREZ [Autonomous Zapatista Municipality in Rebellion] 17 de Noviembre), the same place where the First Gathering was held, it’s the official municipality of Altamirano.

Register at the following email:

estamosaprendiendo@ezln.org.mx

Note: ONLY women who struggle will be allowed to enter the semillero, which is the site of the gathering (they can bring boys under 12). NO MEN PERMITTED at the site. Oh well. The Zapatista Women Coordinating Committee will provide details at a later date.

-*-

Celebration of the 26th Anniversary of the Beginning of the War Against Oblivion

To be held December 31-January 1, 2020, at:

Caracol Torbellino de Nuestras Palabras (Whirlwind of our Words), Tzots Choj zone (community of Morelia, MAREZ 17 de Noviembre).

Register at the following email:

visitante26aniversario@ezln.org.mx

-*-

That’s all for now.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés
Sixth Commission of the EZLN

Source: Enlace Zapatista

ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION
MEXICO

INVITATION TO THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL GATHERING OF WOMEN WHO STRUGGLE

September 2019

To women who struggle all over the world:

Sister, compañera, woman in struggle:

We send you greetings, from the indigenous and Zapatista women that we are.

Perhaps you remember that at our First Gathering, we made an agreement that we must live. We see of course that the killing and disappearance of women continues—of women of all ages and social positions. We are killed and disappeared because we are women, and then told it is our fault, that these things happen because of how we were dressed, because of where we were walking, because we were out at certain hours in certain places. Both men and women in the bad government utter such stupidities to imply that we shouldn’t go out at all. According to this mindset, women should be shut up in their homes; they shouldn’t go out, shouldn’t study, shouldn’t work, shouldn’t enjoy themselves, shouldn’t be free.

We see clearly that the capitalist and patriarchal system is like a judge that has declared us guilty of being born women and sentenced us to violence, death, or disappearance.

It’s hard to put it into words, sister and compañeras, it’s like an evil so great that it can’t be named. Now they call it “femicide” or whatever but the name doesn’t change anything, the deaths and disappearances continue to accumulate. And then our families, friends, and acquaintances have to fight so that we are not effectively killed and disappeared all over again when our murderers go unpunished, or when it is said that we were merely victims of bad luck; or worse, that we were asking for it.

(Continuar leyendo…)

From the Cat-Dog’s Notebook:
Preparations for the Puy Ta Cuxlejaltic Film Festival, a CompArte Focused on Dance, and the Second International Gathering for Women in Struggle

Twenty-six years ago, in 1993, the Zapatista women wrote the “Women’s Revolutionary Law.” In one of the articles of the law, they declared they had a right to study… “and even to be drivers,” as noted by SupMarcos in a public letter commemorating the anniversary of the law and the role of the late Comandanta Ramona and Comandanta Susana in the creation of the women’s law. Maybe someday we’ll learn why the indigenous Zapatista Women aspired to be drivers. But for now, the EZLN’s Sixth Commission presents an exclusive preview of the documentaries to be premiered by the Terci@s Compas [Zapatista media] on a still to-be-determined date. Here goes:

Title: “…And Even to be Drivers”

A documentary filmed entirely in the mountains of Southeastern Mexico in 2019. Written, directed, and produced by Zapatista women, this documentary compiles scenes of Zapatista compañeras learning to drive. Duration: undetermined. Format: unknown. Rating: Z (as it should be). It won’t come out on Netflix, nor on Amazon Prime, nor on Apple TV, nor on HBO, nor Fox, nor…what are the other options? Well, not on any of those either. Nor will it be shown in theaters. It will be shown exclusively in the Zapatista Caracoles… Oh, also at the Second International Gathering for Women in Struggle? Should I include that? Got it. But without any date or location? Okay. But people are going to complain that I’m leaving them hanging. Couldn’t we at least give them a hint, like a road sign? No, not for the actual road, I mean like an idea of potentially when and where… in December? Of this year? Hello? Helloooooo? Feeling low? Huh, well it looks like they left, but I can tell you they don’t look low at all… in fact they had a glint in their eye, in their gaze, like a goal, or a challenge—a rebellion, really. A Zapatista glint, that is.

Disclaimer: no men were hurt in the production of this documentary. Well actually there were, but only in the form of a few blows to the ego. Oh, and also a few who fell as they were running away from a compañera who got pissed because they were yelling stuff at the women learning to drive… no, it wasn’t me, I was watching from a ways away, I wasn’t going to find myself in the vicinity of that piece of lead pipe she was carrying… yee-haw…

Apocalyptic Synopsis: A virus produced in the laboratories of the Illuminati is released in the mountains of Southeastern Mexico. For some strange reason, it only affects those law-breakers who call themselves Zapatista women. The virus causes them to do strange and illogical things—they rebel, they resist, and they take over jobs and responsibilities that should be the exclusive domain of men. This documentary compiles evidence of this insubordination, and you can see exactly how the Zapatista women consider themselves not only to be free but also—you’re not going to believe this—even to be drivers. Didn’t I tell you? Nobody has any values anymore. (Continuar leyendo…)

Images from the Breaking of the Siege II (and last)
From August 17, 2019.

Note from SupGaleano: Here there should be a photo slide show from the new CRAREZ [Centers of Autonomous Zapatista Resistance and Rebellion] which were announced as part of the breaking of the siege on August 17, 2019. This video will likely be removed by Mr. YouTube since it is set to a song by Ana Tijoux (Chilean-French) and Shadia Mansour (Palestinian) entitled “Somos Sur,” [We are the South] and supposedly we either have to pay royalties or accept advertising. We are not of course going to accept advertising, and if there’s no money for water tanks for the new caracol Tulan Kaw, then there’s certainly no money to pay royalties. In any case, the Sixth Commission does not “monetize” our videos (plus, the traffic on our channel is like the traffic during semana santa (Easter) in Mexico City), so I doubt Mr. YouTube is going to end up any less rich because of our refusal to accept advertisement, nor are Ana Tijoux and Shadia Mansour going to lose artistic quality or followers because we have accompanied their rebellion with ours.

Maybe instead of taking down the videos that people set to music—as Zapata didn’t say, “music belongs to those who sing/dance/hum/bounce/whisper/shout and spread it (and like Shadia Mansour says, rapping in Arabic: “music is the mother tongue of the world”)—Mr. YouTube should work on his damned algorithm (“Oh, the twisted lines of YouTube”i). You know how it goes, you start out looking for videos of the guys from Botellita de Jerez to pay homage to the memory of Armando Vega Gil, or you search for ska from Los de Abajo, or Salón Victoria, or some tracks from Jijos del Mais, or Van T, or Mexican Sound, or LenguaAlerta, or Lirica, or Ely Guerra, or Keny Arkana, or the Batallones Femeninos, or from those masters Oscar Chávez and Guillermo Velázquez and Los Leones de la Sierra de Xichú, and all of a sudden you’re getting bombarded with videos of rodeos, cockfights, Maluma giving classes on how to respect women, or makeup videos (“now we’re going to learn how to do makeup for a ‘no makeup’ selfie”).

It’s not that we’re being fussy—after all, like Inodoro Pereyra said (or was it Mendieta?), “Broad and Alien is the World”ii—but rather that here, bandwidth is about as broad as Trump’s IQ: paltry, in other words.

Given all of the above, if YouTube removes the video because of its soundtrack (like it already did with Princess Mononoke, apparently because Studio Ghibli decided to side with the system instead of with natureiii), we’ll repost the same photo slideshow here but without music, and you can add the music yourselves. In fact, I’ll include the translation from Arabic to Spanish of Shadia Mansour’s rap (based on the contribution from the user qmqz posted on the official music video) [TN: translated here in English]:

“Give me the mic:

Music is the mother tongue of the world
It supports our existence and protects our roots, tying us to greater Syria, Africa, and Latin America
Here I stand with Anita Tijoux
Here I stand with those who suffer, not with those who sold us out
Here I stand with culture, resistance
From the beginning and forever, hasta la victoria siempre!
I am with those who are against, with those who have cooperated, with those not on our side
Way back I did the math and I decided to invest in Banksy after Ban-Ki went bankrupt (Note from SupGaleano: possibly a reference to Ban-Ki Moon, who was Secretary General of the United Nations when this song was recorded, and went “bankrupt” when he refused to condemn the Israeli government’s terrorist actions against the Palestinian people).
As the saying goes, “it’s not that the situation needs a ‘proportionate response’, the situation needs to be stopped”
For every freed political prisoner an Israeli settlement grows
For every civil greeting a thousand homes are destroyed
They use the press to their benefit
But while my sorrow is vetoed, reality insists”

You know what? With or without YouTube, with or without advertising, the Palestinian people and the Mapuche people will achieve freedom. Ten, one hundred, a thousand times they will reach victory.

And if Mr. YouTube takes the whole thing down as part of the “fuck the Zapatistas now” campaign, oh well, we’ll just go back to the good old days of the Zapatista Intergalactic Television System, “the only television channel that you read” (Permit 69, currently being processed by the Good Government Councils, submitted as of 1996 but caracoles move slooooooooowly….).

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
Los Tercios Compas
EZLN Sixth Commission
September 2019

i “Los renglones torcidos de Dios” (The Twisted Lines of God) is a novel by Torcuato Luca de Tena.

ii “El mundo es ancho y ajeno,” a 1941 novel by Ciro Alegría narrating indigenous struggle in the Peruvian highlands against land-hungry interests. Inodoro Pereyra is an Argentinian cartoon created by Roberto Fontanarrosa that parodies folklorism through the story of a lonely Argentinean gaucho and his co-protagonist, a talking dog, Mendieta.

iii Princess Mononoke is a Japanese animated period drama written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and animated by Studio Ghibli which narrates an epic and fantastical struggle between the supernatural guardians or gods of a forest and the humans who consume its resources.

Images from the breaking of the siege I
August 2019.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

Los Tercios Compas.

Sixth Commission of the EZLN.

August 2019.

Communique from the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation
Mexico

August 17, 2019

To the People of Mexico:
To the Peoples of the World:
To the National Indigenous Congress—Indigenous Governing Council:
To the National and International Sixth:
To the Networks of Support and Resistance and Rebellion:

Hermanos, Hermanas, Hermanoas:

Compañeras, Compañeros, Compañeroas:

We bring you our word. The same word as yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It is the word of resistance and rebellion.

In October of 2016, almost three years ago, during the 20^th anniversary of the National Indigenous Congress [CNI], the sister organizations of the National Indigenous Congress and the EZLN made a commitment to go on the offensive in our defense of our Territory and Mother Earth. Persecuted by the bad government, by caciques, by foreign corporations, by criminals, and by the law, and as we accumulated insults, derision, and dead, we the originary peoples (the guardians of the earth), decided to go on the offensive and circulate the words and actions of resistance and rebellion.

With the founding of the Indigenous Governing Council [CIG] and the selection of its spokesperson, Marichuy, the National Indigenous Congress gave itself the job of taking words of warning and organization to the brothers and sisters of the city and countryside. Meanwhile, the EZLN also went on the offensive in its struggle with its words, ideas, and organization.

The time has come to hold ourselves accountable to the CNI-CIG and its spokesperson so that their peoples can decide if we have lived up to what we promised. But it is not only the CNI-CIG that we are accountable to; we also have a pending debt with the organizations, groups, collectives, and individuals (especially those in the Sixth and the Networks [of Rebellion and Resistance], but not only them) that throughout Mexico and the world concern themselves with our Zapatista peoples. These are people who, whatever their calendars, geographies, and habits may be, disregard the walls, borders, and sieges that are erected to divide us so that their hearts can continue to beat close to our own.

(Continuar leyendo…)