June 2013.
To the adherents of the Sixth in Mexico and the world:
To the students of the Zapatista Little School:
Compañeros, compañeroas, and compañeras:
The following people won’t be your classmates in the little school, because we didn’t invite them:
The legislators who made up the Peace and Reconciliation Commission (COCOPA) in 1996-1997. It would, however, have been beneficial for them to realize that they had not been mistaken in their initiative for the constitutional recognition of indigenous rights and culture, which was betrayed by all of the political parties, as well as the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary.
The current legislators of COCOPA. Although it would have helped them to discover where the door to reactivate dialogue with the EZLN is located.
The presidents of the registered political parties (PRI, PAN, PRD, PVEM, PT, MC and NA). Because we don’t have enough antacids to alleviate the outrage it would cause them to see the evidence of what can be done, not only without the political parties, but despite them.
The chairmen of the legislature committees and the coordinators of the parliamentary factions. Although it would have been good for them to see what even their counter-reform of the indigenous law could not prevent.
The Secretary of National Defense, the Secretary of the Navy, the Center for Research and National Security (CISEN), the Attorney General (PGR), the National Security Commission, the Secretary of Social Development, and the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation. Although they would have been able to confirm their intelligence reports, which tell them that the standard of living in the Zapatista indigenous communities has risen significantly despite their counterinsurgent efforts, their support for paramilitary groups, and their policing approach to a just and legitimate struggle. Beyond that, they could have confirmed first hand the persistence of that which they have tried so hard to destroy: indigenous autonomy.
The North American State Department, the CIA, the FBI. Although it would have helped them understand their repeated failures…and those yet to come.
The various espionage agencies languishing in boredom in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, where their only occupation is to encourage the raging gossip among the local [Coleta] NGOs.
The Boss,[i] who really gives orders to all of them, and to whom they bow and flatter. Although he would have shuddered to see that his recurrent nightmare has become a reality.
They have never been, nor are, nor will be our guests.
Rather, they have been, are, and will be our persecutors, those who search for a way to destroy us, to break us, to buy us, to force us to surrender.
They will always be spying on us, watching us, and cursing us, as they are now, as they were yesterday, and as they have been for 10, 20, 30, 500 years.
We are not inviting them not only because curriculum doesn’t include groups with no learning capacity, or so as not to encourage the ‘bullying’ to which they would be subjected by the other students (I know, what a shame), or because we have better ways to waste our time.
We are not inviting them because, just as we will not stop resisting and struggling, neither will they stop despising us, trying to exploit us, repress us, to strip us of what is ours, and to make us disappear.
And just as we will never learn the language of money, they will never learn to respect that which is different.
Above all, we are not inviting them because they, and he who commands them, will never understand why, instead of dying, we live.
-*-
And so, oh well, you can’t count among your classmates such ‘illustrious’ people. And therefore you won’t appear in the written media, or on the radio, or on television, and there won’t be roundtables, debate, or brainy analysis. That is, as they say, the air will be clean. And the land, which birthed us and nurtured our growth, will appreciate the dignified step that walks upon it: yours.
Vale. Health and freedom, the step of those below is welcome here, as is their heart.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
SupMarcos.
Mexico June 2013
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Watch and listen to the videos that accompany this text:
Oscar Chávez and los Morales pointing to the chupacabras, which, as you see, are the same as ever.
A brief explanation of the Mexican government’s counter-insurgent strategies and the use of paramilitary groups.
Guillermo Velázquez and los Leones de la Sierra de Xichú, accompanying Oscar Chávez in this long “Pleito entre el peso y el dólar” (dispute between the peso and the dollar).
