300
Part III:
A Challenge, Real Autonomy, An Answer, Multiple Proposals, and a Few Anecdotes about the Number 300

So what’s next?

We’ll have to swim against the current, but that’s nothing new for us Zapatistas.

We want to reiterate—and we have consulted this with the Zapatista communities—that we oppose any and every overseer. We’re not just talking about those who insist they will administrate properly and repress correctly—as in the current proposal to combat corruption and improve security via impunity—but also those whose intentions for hegemony and imposed homogeneity lie just below their vanguardist dreams.

We will not exchange our history, our pain, our rage, and our struggle for a “progressive” conformity which is currently closing ranks behind its leader. We don’t forget, even when everybody else does, that we are Zapatistas.

With regard to our autonomy and the discussion that’s going on about whether it will be recognized or not, we make the following distinction: there is official autonomy, and there is real autonomy. Official autonomy is recognized by law, and this is its logic: “If you have an autonomous system and I legally recognize it, then your autonomy begins to depend on my law and not on your actual autonomous practices. When election season rolls around, you’ll have to support us, voting and promoting the vote for our party, because if another party takes office they’ll undo that law that protects you.” In that logic, we become political party peons, just as has happened to social movements all over the world. The actual function and defense of autonomy ceases to matter; the only thing that matters is what is recognized by the law. The struggle for freedom is in effect transformed into a struggle for the legal recognition of struggle.

-*-

We talked to our “bosses,” that is, the communities that determine our path, our route, and our destiny. We see what is coming through their perspective. We asked them: “if we take this position (what we believe is necessary), what will happen?”

And this is how we answered ourselves: “we’ll be alone and isolated in our position. People will say that we’re irrelevant—that we have placed ourselves outside the great revolution, the supposed fourth transformation, this new religion or whatever you want to call it—and we’ll have to swim against the current yet again.”

But being alone and isolated is nothing new for us. Then we asked ourselves: are we afraid to be alone in what we believe? Are we afraid to hold fast to our convictions and to struggle for them? Are we afraid that the people who previously supported us will turn against us? Are we afraid to refuse to give up, give in, or sell out? We asked ourselves each of these questions and we came to the conclusion that what we were asking was if we were afraid to be Zapatistas.

We aren’t afraid to be Zapatistas and that’s exactly what we are going to continue to be. That was what we asked ourselves, and that was our answer.

We think that, alongside all of you (the support networks), and with everything against us—because we know that throughout this process you didn’t have the support of the media or the masses, nor could you count on pay or popularity (we know you had to use your own money to carry out your work)—we organized ourselves around a collective of originary peoples and a small, brown woman, the color of the earth, to denounce a predatory system and defend our conviction and our struggle.
We’re looking for other people who aren’t afraid. That’s why we want to ask you (the support networks), are you afraid? You decide. If you’re afraid, we’ll look somewhere else.

-*-

We think that we should continue to walk closely with the originary peoples.

Maybe some of you as support networks still think that what you’re doing is supporting the originary peoples. As time goes by you’re going to see that it’s just the opposite: they will support you through their experience and their forms of organization. That is, you will learn, because if anyone is an expert in surviving a storm it’s the originary peoples. They’ve had everything thrown at them and here they still are—here we still are.

But we also think, and compañer@s we want to make this very clear: that won’t be enough. We will have to incorporate into our horizon of struggle all of our own realities and the pain and rage they hold. We will have to move toward a new phase of this process: the construction of a Council that includes the struggles of all of the oppressed, marginalized, disappeared, and murdered, the struggles of political prisoners, of women who have been attacked and harassed, of children who have been prostituted, of all the calendars and geographies that delineate a map that is impossible within the laws of probability and illegible to polls and votes: the contemporary map of rebellion and resistance across the planet.

If we—all of us together—are going to challenge the laws of probability that say there is little to no chance that we will succeed, if we are going to challenge the polls and the millions of votes and the world-in-numbers that Power pulls out to try to demoralize us and make us give up, then we have to make the Council [Indigenous Governing Council, CIG] bigger. At this point this is just a thought that we want to share with you—that we think it is important to build a Council that neither absorbs nor annuls differences, but rather gives each of us the chance to be with others [otros, otras, otroas] who share the same struggle. This is why we think the Council should not be limited by a geography imposed by borders and flags, but should aim to become international.

What we are proposing is that the Indigenous Governing Council cease to be only indigenous and only national in scope.

To that end, as Zapatistas we put forward the following proposals, in addition to the ones already suggested during this gathering, to be consulted with all of your home collectives and organizations:

1. To reaffirm our support for the National Indigenous Congress and the Indigenous Governing Council.

2. To create and maintain open and transparent forms of communication among all of us who have come together on this path of the Indigenous Governing Council and its spokeswoman.

3. To begin or continue our analysis and evaluation of the reality in which we live, and to share with each other these analyses and evaluations as well as our subsequent proposals for coordinated action.

4. Without ceasing our support for the originary peoples, we propose to double down on the work of the CIG Support Networks in order to open our collective heart to all of the rebellions and resistances that emerge and persevere wherever we might be, in the countryside or the city, without regard for borders.

5. To begin or continue the struggle to grow both the demands and dimensions of the Indigenous Governing Council with the goal of extending it beyond originary peoples to include workers of the countryside and city and all of those who have been discarded or marginalized but who have their own history and struggle, that is, their own identity.

6. To begin or continue the analysis and discussion toward the creation of a Coordination or Federation of Networks which avoids any kind of centralized or vertical command and which spares no effort in building solidarity, support, and sisterhood/brotherhood among its participants.

7. Finally, to hold in December of this year an international gathering of networks—we propose that for now we call ourselves the Network of Resistance and Rebellion (and then the name of each collective), but it could be whatever we decide to name ourselves. At that point we will have had the chance to hear, analyze, and evaluate what the National Indigenous Congress and the Indigenous Governing Council decide and propose during their meeting in October, and we will also have the results of the consultation process to be undertaken as a result this meeting we are in right now. We would like to offer one of the Zapatista Caracoles as a location for that upcoming meeting, if you are all in agreement.

Our proposal, then, is not only for the originary peoples, but for everyone [todoas, todas, todos] who resist and rebel in each and every corner of the world, and who challenge every rule, law, mold, dictate, number, and percentage imposed on us.

-*-

First anecdote: During the first days of 1994, the intelligence services of the Mexican army estimated that the self-designated “ee-zee-el-en” consisted of “only” 300 transgressors of the law.
Second anecdote: That same year, as Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León and Esteban Moctezuma Barragán plotted the betrayal and ambush to be carried out against us in February of 1995,i the Nexos group (dedicated at that time to singing the praises of Salinas de Gortari and Zedillo), exclaimed, out of growing frustration and in so many words by Héctor Aguilar Camín, “Why don’t we just obliterate them? There are only 300 of them!”

Third anecdote: Information from the registration table at the Gathering of Support Networks for the CIG and its spokeswoman, held at the Zapatista Caracol “Whirlwind of our Words” August 3-5, 2018: “attendees: 300”.

Fourth anecdote: Profits of the 300 most powerful corporations on the planet: we have no idea, but it could be 300, or any other number, followed by a shitload of zeros, and ending with “millions of dollars”.

Fifth anecdote: “encouraging” quantities and percentages:

The quantitative difference between 300 and 30,113,483 (the number of votes López Obrador the candidate received according to the INE): thirty million, one hundred and thirteen thousand, one hundred and eighty-three.

300 is 0.00099623% of those more than 30 million votes

300 is 0.00052993% of the total votes cast (56,611,027)

300 is 0.00033583% of the total number of registered voters (89,332,032)

300 is 0.00022626% of the total Mexican population (132,593,000, minus the 7 women who, on average, are murdered daily. Over the past decade, a girl, young woman, adult woman, or elderly woman has been murdered, on average, every 4 hours).

300 is 0.00003012% of the population of the American Continent (996,000,000 in 2017)

The probability of destroying the capitalist system is 0.000003929141%, which is the percentage of the world population (7,635,255,247 at 7:54pm on August 20, 2018), represented by the number 300 (that is, of course, if those supposed 300 people don’t give up, give in, or sell out).

Oh I know, not even the tortoise beating Achilles[ii] would be consolation.

What about a caracol?[iii]…

La Bruja Escarlata?[iv]…

The cat-dog?…

All right, enough of that. What keeps us Zapatistas awake is not the challenge presented by this infinitesimal probability of triumph, but the question of what the world that follows, the one that begins to emerge from the still smoking ashes of this system, will be like.

What will be its ways?

Will its colors speak?

What will its theme song be? (Huh? “The Girl with the Red Bow?”[v] No way).

What will be the lineup of Defensa Zapatista’s (finally) full team? Can Esperanza Zapatista’s teddy bear join the lineup and team up with Pedrito? Will they let Pablito wear his cowboy hat and Amado Zapatista, his crocheted helmet? Why doesn’t the damned referee blow his whistle on the Cat-dog who is so obviously off-sides?

Above all, and most importantly, how will that new world dance?

This is why, when we Zapatistas are asked, “What’s next?” Well…how can I explain it? We don’t answer on the spot, it takes us a bit. The truth is, you’ll see, that dancing a new world is less problematic than imagining it.

Sixth anecdote: Oh, you thought the thing about “300”vi was because of the film by that title and the Battle of Thermopylae, and you were ready to get dressed up like Leonidas or Gorgo (to each their own) and start shouting “This is Sparta!” while decimating the “immortal” troops of the Persian King Xerxes? Man, haven’t I been saying? Those Zapatistas, always watching another movie. Or, worse yet, watching and analyzing reality. What can you do…

-*-

That’s all…for now.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.                     Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano.
Mexico, August of 2018.

300.
Part II:
A Continent as a Backyard, a Country as a Cemetery, Pensamiento Únicoi as a Government Program, and a Small, Very Small, Ever So Small Rebellion.

From our analysis of the world we move to the level of the continent.

If we look above…

We see the examples of Ecuador, Brazil and Argentina, where supposedly progressive governments have not only been removed from power but prosecuted, and the governments that have taken their place are ones that have been trained as good overseers—obedient to capital, that is—ready to take on a realignment of the world plantation (though, to be fair, even in their cynicism they’re still pretty clumsy). Take Temer in Brazil, Macri in Argentina, and that guy in Ecuador who was supposed to be good because he was chosen by the now-persecuted Correa (a man of the “citizen’s revolution”, “a leftist” according to the progressive intelligentsia who backed him) but who, it turns out, is actually on the right: Lenin Moreno (yeah, paradoxically his name is Lenin).

Under the watchful eye of the State that has become the policeman of the region—Colombia—threats are issued, destabilization efforts are undertaken and plans are made for provocations that would justify “peace force” invasions. In all of South America, we see a return to the brutal times of the Colonies, now characterized by a “new” extractivism—really just the same ancestral plunder of natural resources, categorized as “raw materials”—but endorsed and promoted among the progressive governments of the region as “Left extractivism”. This is supposed to be something like a Leftist capitalism or a capitalist Left, or who knows what it’s supposed to be because it destroys and dispossesses just the same, only it’s for a “good cause” (??). Any criticism or movement that opposes the destruction of the originary peoples’ territories is written off as having been “promoted by Empire” or “backed by the right-wing”, among other equivalents to being “a conspiracy by the mafia of Power.” In sum, the “backyard” of Capital extends across the continent all the way to Cape Horn.

But if we look below…

We see resistances and rebellions, first and foremost among the originary peoples. It would be unfair to try to name them all since there’s always a risk of leaving some out, but their identities are clear in their struggles. There where the machine encounters resistance to its predatory advance, rebellion dresses in colors so old they’re new again and speaks “strange” languages. Displacement, also disguised as the leasing of lands, tries to impose its commodity logic on those who refer to the Earth as “Mother.” These resistances are accompanied by groups, collectives, and organizations which, while perhaps not themselves composed of originary peoples, share the same effort and the same destiny, that is to say, the same heart. That is why they suffer insults, persecution, imprisonment and, not infrequently, death.

(Continuar leyendo…)

Words of the EZLN’s Sixth Commission at the Gathering of Support Networks for the Indigenous Governing Council (CIG) and its spokeswoman

(Expanded version)

Given time restrictions, we were unable to present these thoughts in full during the gathering. We promised you the full version, and we include the full transcription here, including the parts that were not read at the gathering. You’re welcome. Don’t mention it.

300
Part I:
A Plantation, a World, a War, Slim Chances.

August, 2018.

Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano:

Good morning, thank you for coming, for accepting our invitation and for sharing your words with us.

We are going to begin by explaining our way of doing analysis and evaluation.

We start by analyzing what is happening in the world, then move to what is happening at the continental level, then to what is happening in this country, then to a regional and finally to a local level. From there, we develop an initiative and begin to move back up from a local level to a regional level, then to the national, the continental, and finally the global level.

We think that capitalism is the dominant system at the global level. In order to explain this system both to ourselves and to others, we use the image of a plantation. I’m going to ask Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés to explain this part.

-*-

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés:

Compañeros and compañeras: we interviewed our own compañeros and compañeras who are our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers, some of whom are still alive. The following is what they told us and what they helped us understand: how the rich, the capitalists, want to turn the whole world into their plantation.

(Continuar leyendo…)

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Palabras de la Comandancia General del EZLN en voz del Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés y del Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano, durante la plenaria del Encuentro de Redes de Apoyo al Concejo Indígena de Gobierno, el 5 de agosto de 2018 en el Caracol de Morelia, Chiapas.

Audio: (Descarga aquí)  

Video: Tercios Compas
Audio: Café Zapata Vive

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.

(Debido a fallas en nuestro audio, no hemos podido subir el mensaje que enviaron las compañeras zapatistas el Encuentro de Mujeres el pasado 29 de julio. A partir de audios que subieron páginas amigas, transcribimos el mensaje zapatista. Colectivo RZ).

Mensaje de las mujeres bases de apoyo zapatistas el Encuentro de Mujeres que se realizó en la comunidad indígena Hñähñu de San Lorenzo Nenamicoyan, Estado de México, los días 28 y 29 de julio de 2018

A las Mujeres del Congreso Nacional Indígena
Del Concejo Indígena de Gobierno
A Mujeres del Encuentro de Mujeres

Reciban un saludo revolucionario a nombre de las compañeras bases de apoyo zapatistas. Nos da mucho gusto escuchar que ustedes organizaron un Encuentro de Mujeres, que no dependieron de los hombres. Es así que debemos conquistar nuestro derecho como mujeres, donde tengamos espacio para luchar contra el capitalismo patriarcal, escuchar diferentes formas organizándonos en las reuniones, asambleas, con conciencia y valor. Que nosotras, las mujeres, sí podemos hacer los trabajos de diferentes formas, como en la salud, educación, producción, tercias, medias, justicia, radios comunitarias, en las artes y también como gobernamos en las juntas de buen gobierno, en los MAREZ y autoridades locales de los tres niveles autónomos.

Todo eso no ha sido tan fácil porque no tenemos manual, sino en las prácticas ahí fuimos aprendiendo como en los trabajos que se necesitan. Aunque con errores, ahí fuimos corrigiéndonos. No por eso dejamos de luchar. También estamos vigilándonos en todas las áreas del trabajo que ejercemos en la autonomía y educamos a nuestros jóvenas y jóvenes a que tengan una vida mejor, su libertad para luchar contra el pinche sistema capitalista patriarcal.

Nosotras, como mujeres, no somos objetos para ellos. Tampoco mercancías ni limosneras. No pensemos que alguien nos viene a dar el cambio, sino que nosotras tenemos que hacer el cambio, organizándonos desde abajo con los millones de mexicanas y mexicanos que ¿a poco se conforman con la situación en que están? (…) La esperanza, compañeras, que sigamos luchando y organizándonos. Que no sea la primera ni la última vez que organizan este encuentro porque es necesario compartir sus experiencias de lucha. Así como nosotras llevamos 24 años de lucha y nos falta mucho para hacer y aprender organizándonos, como ya dijimos que no tenemos libros o manual para diario, sino conforme a los pasos, vamos tejiendo nuestras experiencias y rescatando nuestra sabiduría como pueblos originarios.

Ánimo, pues, compañeras. No dejemos de luchar. Ganaremos en conquistar nuestros derechos como mujeres, la igualdad y la libertad junto con nuestros compañeros. Vamos adelante.

29 de julio del 2018
¡Vivan las mujeres del Congreso Nacional Indígena!
¡Vivan las mujeres del Concejo Indígena de Gobierno!
¡Vivan las mujeres que participan en el Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres!

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés

Zapatista Army of National Liberation
Mexico

To the People of Mexico:
To the People and Governments of the World:
To the Free, Alternative, Autonomous, or whatever they’re called Media:
To the National and International Sixth:
To the National Indigenous Congress and the Indigenous Governing Council:
To the National and International Press:

July 17th, 2018.

Since yesterday and during today, media has been running a story backed by declarations of Mister Alejandro Solalinde (who presents himself as a presbyter, priest, clergyman or however its said, christian, catholic, Roman Apostolic), of a supposed approach between EZLN and Mister Andrés Manuel López Obrador and that “the EZLN already agreed to have a first dialogue” (textual words by Mister Solalinde).

About this lie EZLN declares:

First: The CCRI-CG of EZLN, the political, organizational and military directorate of EZLN, hasn’t agreed to a first dialogue with anyone. As its well know by whoever has the minimum knowledge of EZLN and its ways, a matter like this would have been made public well in advance.

Second: EZLN hasn’t received from Mister Solalinde anything but lies, insults, libel and racist and sexist comments, by assuming just like it was done during the days of Salinismo and Zedillismo, that we are poor ignorant indigenous manipulated by the -quoting his own words- “Caxlanes who administer Zapatismo” that don’t allow us to look down and kneel to the mister whose Solalinde considers the new savior.

Third: We understand Solalinde’s need to be on the spotlight and his demand for our submissiveness, but he is wrong about EZLN’s Zapatismo. Not only he is wrong about that. We don’t know much about it, but it seems like one of the church commandments to whom Mister Solalinde supposedly serves, which goes: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour, and you won’t lie”.

(Continuar leyendo…)

Convocation to a Gathering of Support Networks for the Indigenous Governing Council; to CompARTE[i]  2018, “For Life and Freedom”; and to the Fifteenth Anniversary Event of the Zapatista Caracoles entitled, “Píntale Caracolitos a los malos gobiernos pasados, presentes y futuros” [ii]

July, 2018.

To the individuals, groups, collectives and organizations of the Support Networks for the Indigenous Governing Council:

To the National and International Sixth:

First and last point:

The Grand Finale.

You arrive at the grand stadium. “Monumental,” “colossal,” “an architectonic marvel,” “the concrete giant”—these and similar descriptors roll off the lips of TV broadcasters who, despite the different realities that they describe, all highlight the enormously proud structure.

To get to the magnificent building, you’ve had to wade through rubble, cadavers, and filth. Older folks say that it wasn’t always like this, that it used to be that homes, neighborhoods, businesses, and buildings were erected around the great sporting hub. Rivers of people would rush all the way up to the gigantic entrance, which only opened once in a while and on whose threshold was inscribed, “Welcome [Bienvenido] to the Supreme Game.” Yes, “bienvenido” in the masculine, as if what occurred inside was exclusively a men’s affair, as used to be the case with public bathrooms, bars, the machinery and tools sections of hardware stores…and, of course, soccer.

(Continuar leyendo…)

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Domingo 15 abril, a partir de la hora que se pueda, ¿a las 1600 está bien?, sale y vale, a las 1600 horas, en el CIDECI-UniTierra:

¡Gran Concierto Musical!

(oh, bueno pues, ¡Mediano Concierto Musical!
¿Tampoco?  Bueno, “¡Concierto Musical a Secas!”, ¿ah verdad?)

Batalla Campal Musiquera

(batidillo musiquero –ni idea de qué resulte-, o sea que será algo así como los tacos campechanos con harrrrrrrta salsa.  Ojo: el antiácido va por su cuenta).

“Falta lo que Falta”
(o sea la paga, ésa siempre falta)

/porque viera que hay, oiga usted, joven, caballero, damita, ´onde quiera se consiguen, ya no digamos en blanco y negro, hasta fotocopias a color; impresiones en 3D de credenciales del INE –no, el photoshop se cobra aparte-; firmas con el DNA incluido; encuestas al gusto del que pague; un padrón electoral a modo; dos figuritas de acción, ¡edición limitada!, de Lorenzo Córdova y Ciro Murayama, para la casa, la oficina, oiga usted, para la dama, el caballero, la señorita, el niño, la niña, para regalo, presente u obsequio, llévelas –opcional: dos máscaras de los susodichos y una calcomanía con la leyenda “Yo en el INE sí confío” y otra que dice “Nah, ni madres”, para el carnaval de abril a julio-; boletas electorales ya con la elección de su preferencia (ah, ¿ésas ya las tienen? Mta, ¿no les digo?, si falta como quien dice “prospectiva” empresarial); más de un millón de followers para la red social más cercana a su esmarfon; hay para todos los presupuestos… bueno, no para todos, ni modos…/

(Continuar leyendo…)

Program for the Roundtable:
“To Watch, to Listen, to Speak: No Thinking Allowed?”

I.
Poster and Photography Exhibition
April15-25, 2018, at the CIDECI-UniTierra, in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México

Images of Hope
Poster art from Marichuy’s campaign
Curated by Alejandro Magallanes

Absences and Presences
Disappeared Women, Women of Dignified Rage
Photographs by Maya Goded and Graciela Iturbide

II.
Music Concert
Sunday April 15, beginning at 4pm, at the CIDECI-UniTierra
Program to follow

III.
Roundtable Sessions:

Monday April 16, 4pm:
Marichuy Patricio Martínez
Mercedes Olivera
Márgara Millán
Sylvia Marcos

Tuesday April 17, 4pm:
Carlos Aguirre Rojas
Alicia Castellanos
Gilberto López y Rivas
Alejandro Grimson

Wednesday April 18, 4pm:
Films and documentaries:
Tobías. Directed by Francisca Dacosta, with an introduction by the director.
Somos Lengua.  Directed by Kyzza Terrazas, with an introduction by the director.
La libertad de diablo.  Directed by Everardo González, with an introduction by the director.

Thursday, April 19, 4pm:
Fernanda Navarro
Lupita Vázquez Luna
Erika Bárcena Arévalo
Jaime Martínez Luna
Carlos López Beltrán

Friday April 20, 4pm:
Jorge Alonso
Carlos Mendoza
Jacobo Dayán
Mónica Meltis
Irene Tello Arista

Saturday April 21, morning session beginning at 10am:
Daniela Rea
Marcela Turati
Javier Risco
Emilio Lezama
Luis Hernández Navarro

Saturday April 2, afternoon session beginning at 4pm:
Marichuy Patricio Martínez
Mardonio Carvallo
Carlos González
Adolfo Gilly
Juan Carlos Rulfo
Juan Villoro
Pablo González Casanova

Sunday April 22, morning session beginning at 10am:
Bertha Navarro
Ximena Antillón, Mariana Mora y Edith Escareño
Mauricio González González
John Gibler

Sunday April 22, afternoon session beginning at 4pm:
Juan Carlos Rulfo
Paul Theroux
Cristina Rivera-Garza
Abraham Cruzvillegas y Gabriela Jáuregui
Enrique Serna

Monday April 23, 4pm:
Sergio Rodríguez Lascano
Magda Gómez
Bárbara Zamora
Rafael Castañeda

Tuesday April 24, 4pm:
Natalia Beristáin
Néstor Quiñones
Daniel Giménez Cacho
Yásnaya Aguilar Gil

Wednesday April 25, 4pm:
Support team for the CIG [Indigenous Governing Council] and its spokeswoman / Chiapas Collective.
Support team for the CIG and its spokeswoman / Mesa de Bellas Artes Collective
Raúl Romero
Pablo González Casanova
Roundtable Closing

From the Support Team
April, 2018

The Sixth Commission of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation convokes a ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION (or seedbed, depending on who you ask): “To Watch, to Listen, to Speak: No Thinking Allowed?”

ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION
Sixth commission of the EZLN.

Mexico.
March, 2018.

To the persons, groups, collectives and organizations throughout the world who understood and took on as their own the initiative of the Indigenous Governing Council and its spokeswoman:

To the national and international Sixth:

To everyone who contributed their signature in support of the Indigenous Governing Council’s spokeswoman:

CONSIDERING:

First and only:

The Happy Family.

A town, or a city, or whatever it’s called. A place in the world. A wall. Hung on the rough surface of the huge wall is a flyer, a poster, or whatever you call it. In the image, a man and woman smile in front of a table brimming with a wide variety of food. To the couple’s right, a smiling girl; to their left, a boy grinning to display gleaming teeth. Above them in large and intimidating letters reads “THE HAPPY FAMILY”. The poster is old by now, time’s march forward having muted the colors that, we assume, were once bright and, yes, happy. Anonymous hands have added small paper signs to the wall: “The happy family is happy only with God’s blessing”; “No to gay parenting! Death to faggots and dykes!”; “Motherhood is what defines a happy woman”; “We unclog pipes: no-obligation estimates”; “Happy home available for rent to a happy family. Unhappy families need not apply”.

 Along the sidewalk that runs in front of the wall, people hurry from one place to another without paying any attention to the opaque image. Occasionally, someone is crushed to death under a huge chunk that falls off the decrepit wall. In fact, these partial rockslides are becoming more and more frequent. Loose pieces of the wall break off and crush sometimes one person, sometimes a small group, sometimes whole communities. The crowd is thrown into commotion only for an instant before resuming its trajectory under the pale gaze of the happy family.

Catastrophes big or small, these should not distract us from what is most important now: every so often, the supreme maker of “happy families” announces the free and democratic election of who will preside over the poster.[i] And precisely at this moment, you are just now noticing, a happy calendar that can be seen behind the happy family indicates that it’s election season. Around this time, a feverish activity runs through the crowd that, without stopping, discusses, offers opinions and argues about the different options presenting themselves as potential stewards of the enormous poster.

There are those who point out the danger posed to the image on the already battered poster—the symbolic identity of the city or town or whatever—by their opponents’ obvious inexperience. One person offers to renovate the poster and return to it the brightness and color it once had (in reality, nobody remembers that time, so we can’t be sure that it actually existed—if, of course, we can in fact attribute existence to time). Someone else says that previous administrations have neglected the image, and that this is what has caused its visible deterioration.

The different proposals ignite arguments among passers-by: accusations, insults, fallacies, arguments of a purely ephemeral base, condemnations and apocalyptic predictions fly back and forth. People reflect on the importance and transcendence of this moment, on the necessity of conscious participation. It wasn’t for nothing that they struggled for so many years to be able to choose who presides over the happy image of the happy family.

Factions are formed: on one side are those who insist on a sensible renovation; on the other are those who insist on the scientific postulate, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t”; another faction consists of those calling for proper behavior, good taste and modernity. A few here and there shout, “Don’t think! Vote!”. A giant placard obstructs the flow of people; it reads “Any call to think rationally about voting is a call to abstention. This is not a time to think, it is time to take sides”.

The discussions are not always level-headed. The selection of the steward of the image is so important that many times the competing groups resort to violence.

Some talk of the boundless happiness that accrues to whomever ends up the victor, but, far from mundane worldly interests, the severe faces of the contenders belie the seriousness of the matter: it’s an historic task; the future is in the trembling hands of those who must choose; this most serious responsibility weighs heavily on the shoulders of the people. Happily, though, this weight will be lifted once the winner is known and sets him or herself to the task of procuring happiness for the happy image of the happy family.

The frenzy is such that everyone forgets entirely about the image portrayed. But on the lonely wall, the happy family still displays its perennial and useless smile.

t the foot of the long, high wall, a little girl raises her hand, asking to speak. The factions barely take notice, but someone finally says, “Poor little thing, she wants to talk, we should let her.” “No,” says another faction, “it’s a trick from the opposition group, an attempt to divide the vote, a distraction designed to stop us from reflecting on the gravity of the moment, a clear call to abstention.” Another faction objects: “What capacity could a little girl have to even opine about the poster? She needs to study, grow, and mature.” And from another wing: “We’re not going to waste time listening to a little girl. We should concentrate on what’s important: deciding who is best suited to take care of the poster.”

The “Commission on Transparency and Legitimacy for the Election of the Person in Charge of Stewarding the Image of the Happy Family” (abbreviated CTLEPCSIHF) released a brief and serious memo, in accordance with the gravity of the times: “The rules are clear: NO LITTLE GIRLS ALLOWED.”

Specialized analysts publish new reflections: “The only thing the little girl achieved was the legitimization of the CTLEPCSIHF. In asking for the floor, the girl entered the game and lost; the rest is consolation.”; “The failure of the girl is symptomatic of the failure of the renovation process, the institutions should let the girl talk”; “It was very moving, the little girl with her little hand raised, asking for attention, poor little thing”; “It was an adverse outcome, the product of an erroneous analysis of the conjuncture, the context and the correlation of forces. This signals the absence of a revolutionary vanguard to direct the masses”; “Etcetera”.

 But the discussions lasted only a few minutes before the coming and going of footsteps and injustices continued its course. No one listened to the girl speak as she pointed, not to the image, but to the wall upon which the happy family shone its by now deteriorated tranquility.

Standing on a pile of rubble, surrounded by the cadavers of little girls and broken stones, she stated, flatly, the obvious:

“It’s going to fall.”

But no one listened…

Just a minute…no one?

(To be continued?)

-*-

Based on the above statement, the Sixth Commission of the EZLN convokes:

A ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION (or seedbed, depending on who you ask):

“To Watch, to Listen, to Speak: No Thinking Allowed?”

 In which various participants from the National Indigenous Congress, the Indigenous Governing Council, the arts, the sciences, political activism, journalism and culture will share with us what they are seeing and hearing.

The roundtable will take place from April 15-25, 2018, at the CIDECI-Unitierra in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.

The following, among others, have confirmed their participation:

Marichuy (spokeswoman for the Indigenous Governing Council).
Lupita Vázquez Luna (councilwoman of the Indigenous Governing Council).
Luis de Tavira Noriega (theater director).
Mardonio Carballo (writer).
Juan Carlos Rulfo (filmmaker).
Paul Leduc (filmmaker).
Cristina Rivera-Garza (writer).
Abraham Cruzvillegas (visual artist).
Néstor García Canclini (anthropologist).
Emilio Lezama (writer and political analyst).
Irene Tello Arista (columnist and activist).
Erika Bárcena Arévalo (lawyer and anthropologist).
Ximena Antillón Najlis (psychologist specializing in victims of violence).
Jacobo Dayán (academic and human rights activist).
Marcela Turati (investigative journalist).
Daniela Rea Gómez (journalist).
Carlos Mendoza Álvarez (philosopher).
John Gibler (journalist).
Javier Risco (journalist).
Alejandro Grimson (anthropologist).
Enrique Serna (novelist).
Paul Theroux (writer).
Juan Villoro (writer).
Pablo González Casanova (sociologist and Zapatista, not necessarily in that order).
Gilberto López y Rivas (anthropologist).
Alicia Castellanos Guerrero (anthropologist).
Magdalena Gómez Rivera (lawyer).
Bárbara Zamora (lawyer).
Margara Millán Moncayo (feminist sociologist).
Sylvia Marcos (psychologist and feminist sociologist).
Jorge Alonso Sánchez (anthropologist).
Fernanda Navarro y Solares (philosopher).
Néstor Quiñones (graphic artist).
Raúl Romero (sociologist).
Rafael Castañeda (political militant).
Luis Hernández Navarro (journalist).
Carlos Aguirre Rojas (sociologist and economist).
Sergio Rodríguez Lascano (political militant).
Carlos González (lawyer and activist for the struggles of originary peoples).
Adolfo Gilly (political militant, historian and analyst).
Carolina Coppel (video artist).
Mercedes Olivera Bustamante (feminist anthropologist).
María Eugenia Sánchez Díaz de Rivera (sociologist).
“Lengua Alerta” (musician).
“Panteón Rococó” (musicians).
“El Mastuerzo” (guacarocker[ii]).
“Batallones femeninos” (feminist musicians).
“Los Originales de San Andrés” (Zapatista musicians).
“La Dignidad y la Resistencia” (Zapatista musicians).

As the rest of those invited confirm their attendance (and whose names are not listed here so as to protect the innocent) the complete list will be made public, as well as the dates and times of each participant’s contribution.

The email address to register as a listener-observer, or member of the free or paid press, is:

asistentesemillero@enlacezapatista.org.mx

Please include your name, city, state or country, and whether you are attending as an individual or member of a collective.

That said, don’t miss it… or do miss it, the point is that you watch, listen, and think.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

For the Sixth Commission of the EZLN (Department of “Invitations and Stating the Obvious”).

SupGaleano.

Mexico, March, 2018.

[i] The original Spanish used here is “cartel,” which can mean a poster or sign, but also literally means cartel, as in, for example, a drug cartel.

[ii] “Guacarock” was coined by Mexican rock band “Botellita de Jerez” (of which “El Mastuerzo” was a member) to describe their unique style of fusing Mexican popular rhythms with the sounds of rock’n’roll. The term combines the Mexican word for avocado (aguacate) with rock.