The Hour for Our Peoples to Flourish Has Arrived
Another Step Forward

Joint communique from the National Indigenous Congress and the Sixth Commission of the EZLN greeting the first members of the civil association, “The Hour for Our Peoples to Flourish Has Arrived.” This is a required legal step in order to register the candidacy of the spokesperson of the CIG [Indigenous Governing Council], the indigenous woman María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, for the presidency of the Mexican Republic 2018-2024.

August, 2017

To the People of Mexico:
To the Peoples of the World:
To the National and International Sixth:
Sisters, brothers, hermanoas,

Compañeras, compañeros, and compañeroas:

The originary barrios, tribes, nations, and peoples gathered in the National Indigenous Congress and the indigenous Zapatista communities salute this next step forward on the long road toward putting the name of our indigenous compañera María de Jesús Patricio Martínez on the electoral ballot in 2018 as candidate for the Mexican presidency.

This legal step has been possible thanks to the generous ear, respectful gaze, and friendly word of women and men who have earned, through their own history and efforts, a special place not only in Mexico and in the world but also, and above all, in the heart that is the color of the earth that we are.

The National Indigenous Congress as well as the indigenous Zapatistas express here our approval of and appreciation to:

María de Jesús de la Fuente de O’Higgins (Visual Artist and President of the Maria and Pablo O’Higgins Cultural Foundation)
Graciela Iturbide (Photographer)
María Baranda (Poet)
Paulina Fernández Christlieb (Ph.D. in Political Science)
Fernanda Navarro (Ph.D. in Philosophy)
Alicia Castellanos (Ph.D. in Anthropology)
Sylvia Marcos (Ph.D. in Sociology)
María Eugenia Sánchez Díaz de Rivera (Ph.D. In Sociology)
Ana Lidya Flores (Masters in Ibero-American Literature)
Paulette Dieterlen Struck (Ph.D. in Philosophy)
Márgara Millán (Ph.D. in Latin American Studies)
Domitila Domingo Manuel “Domi” (Graphic Artist)
Mercedes Olivera Bustamante (Ph.D. in Anthropology)
Bárbara Zamora (Attorney)
Magdalena Gómez (Attorney)
Rosa Albina Garavito (Masters in Sociology)
Elia Stavenhagen (Doctor)
Lidia Tamayo Flores (Harpist)
Carolina Coppel (Cultural Producer)
Pablo González Casanova (Ph.D. in Sociology)
Antonio Ramírez (Graphic and Literary Artist)
Eduardo Matos Moctezuma (Masters in Anthropological Sciences)
Javier Garciadiego ( Ph.D. in Mexican History)
Juan Carlos Rulfo (Filmmaker)
Juan Pablo Rulfo (Designer, Graphic Artist)
Francisco Toledo (Graphic Artist)
Paul Leduc (Filmmaker)
Mardonio Carballo (Writer, Journalist)
Luis de Tavira (Theater Director)
Juan Villoro (Writer)
Óscar Chávez (Singer-Songwriter)
Gilberto López y Rivas (Ph.D. in Anthropology)
Carlos López Beltrán (Ph.D. in Philosophy)
Néstor Quiñones (Graphic Artist)
Jorge Alonso (Ph.D. in Anthropology)
Raúl Delgado Wise (Ph.D. in Social Science )
Francisco Morfín Otero (Ph.D. in Philosophy)
Arturo Anguiano Orozco (Ph.D. in Sociology)
Carlos Aguirre Rojas (Ph.D. in Economics)
Pablo Fernández Christlieb (Ph.D. in Psychology)
Rodolfo Suárez Molinar (Ph.D. in Philosophy).
Leonel Rosales García, Monel (Musician from Panteón Rococó)
Rodrigo Joel Bonilla Pineda,Gorri (Musician from Panteón Rococó)
Marco Antonio Huerta Heredia, Tanis (Musician from Panteón Rococó)
Rolando Ortega, Roco Pachukote, (Musician)
Francisco Arturo Barrios Martínez, el Mastuerzo (Musician)
Panteón Rococó (Musicians)
Carlos González García (Attorney)

These persons, along with others who are currently being contacted, form part of the Civil Association named “The Hour for Our Peoples to Flourish Has Arrived,” a necessary body formed in order to begin the path of registration for the candidate whom, with respect and affection, we call “Marichuy,” so that for the first time in this country’s history, a woman from an originary people, and indigenous woman, contends for the presidency of the Mexican Republic.

Because of their honesty and commitment, all of these people hold our absolute trust and admiration. We thus presented their names to the first General Assembly of the Indigenous Governing Council held August 5 and 6, 2017. The Indigenous Governing Council received with joy the support of these brothers and sisters who are recognized across broad sectors in Mexico and the world due to their work in the sciences, arts, and social struggle.

In the face of the current war, our wager is for a real peace, that is, with democracy, freedom, and justice. This is one further step on our path to find those who we want to hear to and who we want to call to organize themselves.

From the most forgotten corners of originary Mexico, for the Full Reconstitution of Our Peoples: Never Again a Mexico Without Us!

National Indigenous Congress
Sixth Commission of the EZLN
August 6, 2017

ART, RESISTANCE AND REBELLION ON THE NET

Call to join the cybernetic edition of CompArte  “Against Capital and its Walls, All the Arts”

July, 2017

Compañeroas, compañeras and compañeros of the Sixth:

Artist and non-artist sisters and brothers [hermanoas, hermanas and hermanos] of Mexico and the world:

Avatars, screennames, webmasters, bloggers, moderators, gamers, hackers, pirates, buccaneers and streaming castaways, anti-social network users, reality show antipodes, or whatever-you-call each person on the network, the web, the internet, cyberspace, virtual reality, or whatever-it’s-called:

We are convoking you because there are some questions that are nagging at us:

Is another internet, that is to say another network, possible? Can one struggle there? Or is that space without precise geography already occupied, captured, coopted, tied, annulled, etceterized? Could there be resistance and rebellion there? Can one make Art on the net? What is that Art like? Can it rebel? Can Art on the net resist the tyranny of codes, passwords, spam as the default search engine, the MMORPGs [massively multiplayer online role-playing games] of the news on social networks where ignorance and stupidity win by millions of likes? Does Art on, by, and for the net trivialize and banalize the struggle, or does it potentiate it and scale it up, or it is “totally unrelated, my friend, it’s art, not a militant cell”? Can Art on the net claw at the walls of Capital and damage it with a crack, or deepen and persist in those that already exist? Can Art on, by, and for the net resist not only the logic of Capital, but also the logic of “distinguished” Art, “real art”? Is the virtual also virtual in its creations? Is the bit the raw material of its creation? Is it created by an individual? Where is the arrogant tribunal that, on the Net, dictates what is and what is not Art? Does Capital consider Art on, by, and for the net to be cyberterrorism, cyberdelincuency? Is the Net a space of domination, domestication, hegemony and homogeneity? Or is it a space in dispute, in struggle? Can we speak of a digital materialism?

(Continuar leyendo…)

Sorry, this entry is only available in Español. For the sake of viewer convenience, the content is shown below in the alternative language. You may click the link to switch the active language.

It has been announced on Enlace Zapatista’s webpage that registration is open for the upcoming Festival “CompArte for Humanity” 2017.

“Choose on which side you’re at, that of reason or that of force. Collective work of (self-denominated) art created by insurgent women and men from the EZLN. Greetings to the CNI-CIG. For the ‘Comparte 17’ “

For the “CompArte for Humanity”, to take place from 23 to 29 July 2017 at the Caracol of Oventik and at CIDECI-UniTierra, you can write to the following emails: If you want to participate: participantescomparte2017@ezln.org.mx If you want to attend: asistentescomparte2017@ezln.org.mx Click here for the pre-registration form for participants

Solidarity and support for our brothers and sisters of the Wixárika people

Listen to the words of the CNI and the EZLN, in the voice of Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, during the Assembly to constitute the Indigenous Governing Council:
(Descarga aquí)  

To the Wixárika People
To the Peoples of the World

Gathered together in the Constitutive Assembly of the Indigenous Council for Mexico at CIDECI–UNITIERRA, Chiapas, the indigenous peoples, nations, and tribes who make up the National Indigenous Congress and the Zapatista Army for National Liberation say to the Wixárika people that we stand together, that your pain and rage are also ours, and that the path of your historic struggle is part of the hope we have as a country and as a world.

We repudiate and condemn the cowardly murder of the compañeros Miguel Vázquez Torres and Agustín Vázquez Torres of the Wixárika community of Waut+a- Saint Sebastian Teponahuaxtlán in the state of Jalisco on May 20 of the present year at the hands of the mercenaries of organized crime. This crime could not have happened without the absolute complicity of the bad governments on all levels, given that the riches of the Wixárika lands are coveted by the powers of capital which know no limits and which use their narco-paramilitary groups to try to dismantle an organization as exemplary as that of the Wixaritari.

We know they will not achieve this; they have never been able to and never will because the fabric that keeps the originary peoples alive also sustains the hope we are building together in order that a new world be born of resistance, rebellion, and the determination to keep existing.

We salute the exemplary defense of the territory that the compañero Miguel led, without ever turning back, as well as the paths the Saint Sebastian community is forging to recuperate nearly 10 thousand hectares invaded by ranchers, supposed small landowners from Huajimic, Nayarit. These ranchers are protected by the capitalist governments’ determination to pretend to dialogue while preparing a bloody end to this conflict, disguising it as drug cartel activity, as unclear state or municipal borders, as lying “task forces”i, as complicated judicial proceedings, or as supposed budget limitations.

Wixaritari compañeras and compañeros, we are with you and we know that the steps you collectively decide to take will be wise and dignified. We will not be indifferent nor oblivious to the support and solidarity that we have mutually shared on the CNI’s historic path.

We emphatically demand the solving of this crime against a whole people, punishment of the guilty, and the dismantling of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and all the criminal capitalist corporations that seek to take over the territories and autonomous organization that we peoples, nations, and tribes defend.

We demand that the the ancestral territories of the Wixárika people be wholly respected, that the territory invaded on the outskirts of Huajimic, Nayarit, be urgently restored [to the people], and that the forms of security and justice decided upon and exercised by the community of Waut+a- Saint Sebastian Teponahuaxtlán be fully respected.

Attentively,
May 27, 2017
National Indigenous Congress
Zapatista National Liberation Army

The Time Has Come

Listen (in Spanish) to the Declaration, read during the Assembly to Constitute the Indigenous Governing Council, Cideci/Universidad de la Tierra Chiapas, 28 May 2017:
(Descarga aquí)  

To To the People of Mexico,
To the Peoples of the World,
To the Media,
To the National and International Sixth,

We send our urgent word to the world from the Constitutive Assembly for the Indigenous Governing Council, where we met as peoples, communities, nations, and tribes of the National Indigenous Congress: Apache, Amuzgo, Chatino, Chichimeca, Chinanteco, Chol, Chontal of Oaxaca, Chontal of Tabasco, Coca, Cuicateco, Mestizo, Hñähñü, Ñathö, Ñuhhü, Ikoots, Kumiai, Lakota, Mam, Matlazinca, Maya, Mayo, Mazahua, Mazateco, Me`phaa, Mixe, Mixe-Popoluca, Mixteco, Mochó, Nahua or Mexicano, Nayeri, Popoluca, Purépecha, Q´anjob´al, Rarámuri, Tének, Tepehua, Tlahuica, Tohono Odham, Tojolabal, Totonaco, Triqui, Tseltal, Tsotsil, Wixárika, Xi´iuy, Yaqui, Binniza, Zoque, Akimel O´otham, and Comkaac.

THE WAR THAT WE LIVE AND CONFRONT

We find ourselves in a very serious moment of violence, fear, mourning, and rage due to the intensification of the capitalist war against everyone, everywhere throughout the national territory. We see the murder of women for being women, of children for being children, of whole peoples for being peoples.

The political class has dedicated itself to turning the State into a corporation that sells off the land of the originary peoples, campesinos, and city dwellers, that sells people as if they were just another commodity to kill and bury like raw material for the drug cartels, that sells people to capitalist businesses that exploit them until they are sick or dead, or that sells them off in parts to the illegal organ market.

Then there is the pain of the families of the disappeared and their decision to find their loved ones despite the fact that the government is determined for them not to, because there they will also find the rot that rules this country.

(Continuar leyendo…)

12 April

Prelude: Clocks, the Apocalypse and the Time of the Small
Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano

The Capitalist World is a Walled Plantation
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés

Kagemusha: April is also Tomorrow
Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano

13 April

Organized Coffee against the Wall
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés

14 April

Lessons on Geography and Globalized Calendars
Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano

15 April

Closing words for the seminar on critical reflection “The Walls of Capital, the Cracks from the Left”
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés

Closing words by Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés

Seminario “Los muros del capital, las grietas de la izquierda
Cideci / Universidad de la Tierra Chiapas
15 de abril de 2017

Good evening.

Thank you, compañeras and compañeros of Mexico and the world.

Thank you, sisters and brothers of Mexico and the world.

I thank you because you made a great effort to listen to us during these days that we have been here together, you worked hard to get here and to return home, and we know that requires significant effort.
We who presented spoke a great deal, and it falls to you to sift through our words to see which will be useful to you in organizing, working, and struggling in the places where you live.

We do want to insist to you that capitalism is going to turn the world into its plantations.

That means we poor women and men of the world have to organize, struggle, and work.

(Continuar leyendo…)

Lessons on Geography and Globalized Calendars

Seminar “The Walls of Capital, the Cracks from the Left
Cideci / Universidad de la Tierra Chiapas
14 April 2017

“Nothing has changed,” so they say.

“In Chiapas, the indigenous are doing the same or worse as before the Zapatista uprising,” the for-profit media repeat every time their foreman tells them to.

Twenty-three years ago, “humanitarian aid” arrived from all over the world. We Zapatista indigenous people understood then that what we were receiving was not charity, but rather support for resistance and rebellion. And instead of consuming it all ourselves or selling it, as the partidistas do, we used that support to build schools, hospitals, and projects for self-organization. Little by little and not without problems, difficulties, and errors, we built the material basis for our freedom.

Yesterday we heard Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés tell us that the indigenous Zapatista communities organized themselves not to ask for help, but rather to support other people in another land, with another language and culture, with another face, with other customs, in order that they might resist. He has described for us the process that was followed to achieve this. Anyone who listened to his words can say, and they would not be wrong, that on that long path from the coffee field to the kilo of packaged coffee, there is one constant: organization.

But let’s return to 1994 -1996.

As women, men, and others [otroas] began to arrive from diverse corners of Mexico and the world, we Zapatista women and men understood that on that calendar, it was not a particular geography which extended its hand and its heart to us.

(Continuar leyendo…)

Organized Coffee Against the Wall
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés

Seminar “The Walls of Capital, the Cracks of the Left”
Cideci / Universidad de la Tierra Chiapas
13 April 2017

Good afternoon or good morning to those who are listening to us around the world.

What I’m going to talk about, compañeros, compañeras, brothers and sisters who are present here and those who watch us from elsewhere… what I’m going to talk to you about is not what I think, but rather what the compañeras and compañeras who make up the Zapatista Army for National Liberation bases of support think.

We compañeras and compañeras here in front [members of the EZLN comandancia] understand that we serve as support for the thousands of compañeras who are bases of support; we support the thousands of compañeros who are bases of support. That’s how we’ve defined it lately because we pass along to them what we see, what we hear, what we come to know. And what is it that we have come to know or hear about? Trump’s wall.

When we started hearing about this, when we began to understand what was going on, we met with the compañeras and compañeros of the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee [CCRI] and began to discuss what is happening to our migrant brothers and sisters who are in the United States.

(Continuar leyendo…)