Fourteenth Part and Second Approach Alert:
The (other) Rule of the Excluded Third

November 2023

The meeting was a year ago. One early morning in November. It was cold. Subcommander Insurgent Moisés arrived at the Captaincy chamber (yes, you are not wrong, by that time SupGaleano had already died, only his death had not been made public). The meeting with the bosses had ended late, and the SubMoy took time to stop by and ask me about what I had progressed in the analysis that had to be presented the next day at the assembly. The moon was moving lazily towards its first quarter and the world population reached 8 billion. Three notes appeared in my notebook:

The richest man in Mexico, Carlos Slim, to a group of students: “now, what I see for all of you is a buoyant Mexico with sustained growth, with many opportunities for job creation and economic activities” (November 10, 2022). (Note: perhaps he refers to Organized Crime as an economic activity that generates employment. And with export goods).

“(…) the number of people who are currently reported missing in Mexico, since 1964, now amounts to 107,201; that is, 7 thousand more than last May, when the 100 thousand threshold was exceeded. (November 7, 2022). (Note: Seek for the seekers).

In Israel, the UN set the number of Palestinian prisoners at around 5,000, including 160 children, according to the report by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967. Netanyahu takes over as head of the government for the third time. (November 2022). (Note: he who sows winds will reap storms).

-*-

A crack as a project.

It was not the first time we had discussed the topic. What’s more, during the last few moons it had been the constant: the diagnosis that would help the assembly make a decision about “what’s next.” They had also been discussing this for months, but the idea-proposal of Subcommander Insurgent Moisés had not landed jet, or materialized. It was still a kind of intuition.

«It’s not that all the doors are closed,» I began. – There are no doors. All those that appear as “true” do not lead anywhere other than to the starting point. Any attempted route is just a trip through a labyrinth that, at best, takes you back to the beginning. At worst, to disappearance.

So? SubMoy asked, lighting the umpteenth cigarette.

-Well, I think you’re right, all that remains is to open a crack. It’s not good to look elsewhere. You have to make a door. It’s going to take time, yes. And it’s going to cost a lot. But yes, it is possible. Although not just anyone. What you are thinking, no one, ever. I myself didn’t think I would get even to hear it – I pointed out.

SubMoy remained thoughtful for a while, looking at the floor of the champa, full of cigarette butts, tobacco residue from the pipe, a burnt match, wet mud, some broken twigs.

Then he got up and, heading to the door, he only said: «Well, there’s no way, we need to see… what’s missing is yet to come.»

-*-

Failure as a goal.

To understand what that brief dialogue meant, I must explain a part of my job as captain. In this case, a work that I inherited from the late SupGaleano, who in turn received it from the late SupMarcos.

A thankless, dark and painful task: foreseeing the Zapatista failure.

If you are considering an initiative, I look for everything that could make it fail, or, at least, reduce its impact. Look for the contradictory opposite. Let’s say something like “Marcos Contreras”. I am, therefore, the maximum and only representative of the “pessimistic wing” of Zapatismo.

The objective is to attack the initiatives with all types of objections from the moment they begin to be born. We suppose that this causes this proposal to be refined and consolidated, whether it be an internal organizational, or an external initiative, be it a combination of these two.

To put it clearly: Zapatismo prepares itself to fail. That is, it imagines the worst-case scenario. With that horizon in perspective, plans are drawn up and proposals detailed.

To conceive these “future failures”, the sciences that we have at our disposal are used. You have to look everywhere (and when I say “everywhere” I mean everywhere, including social networks and their bot farms, fake news and the tricks that are carried out to get “followers”), obtain the greatest amount of data and information, cross it and thus obtain the diagnosis of what the perfect storm would be and its result.

You must try to understand that it is not about building a certainty, but rather a terrible hypothesis. In terms of the deceased: “suppose everything goes to shit.” Contrary to what one may believe, this catastrophe does not include our disappearance, but something worse: the extinction of the human species. Well, at least as we conceive it today.

This catastrophe is imagined and we begin to look for data that confirms it. Real data, not the prophecies of Nostradamus or the biblical Apocalypse or equivalent. That is, scientific data. Scientific publications, financial data, trends, records of facts, and many publications are then used.

From this hypothetical future, the clock is set in reverse.

-*-

The rule of the excluded third.

Already in possession of the drawing of the collapse and its inevitability, the rule of the excluded third begins to work.

No, it is not the known one. This is an invention of the late SupMarcos. In his time as a lieutenant, he said that, in the event of a failure, a solution was first attempted; second, a correction; and third, since there was no third, it remained as “there is no remedy.” Later, he refined that rule until he reached the one that I now explain to you: if a hypothesis is supported by true data and scientific analysis, it is necessary to look for two elements that contradict the aforementioned hypothesis in its essence. If these two elements are found, the third is no longer sought, then the hypothesis must be reconsidered or confronted with the most severe judge: reality.

I clarify that, when the Zapatistas say “reality,” they include their actions in that reality. What you call “practice”.

I then apply that same rule. If I find at least 2 elements that contradict my hypothesis, then I abandon the search, discard that hypothesis and look for another one.

The complex hypothesis.

My hypothesis is: there is no solution.

Notes:

Balanced coexistence between humans and nature is now impossible. In the confrontation, the one who has the most time will win: nature. Capital has turned the relationship with nature into a confrontation, a war of plunder and destruction. The objective of this war is the annihilation of the opponent, nature in this case (humanity included). With the criterion of “planned obsolescence” (or “expected expiration”), the commodity “human beings” expires in each war.

The logic of capital is that of greater profit at maximum speed. This causes the system to become a gigantic waste machine, including human beings. In the storm, social relations are disrupted and unproductive capital throws millions into unemployment and, from there, into “alternative employment” in crime, and into migration. The destruction of territories includes depopulation. The “phenomenon” of migration is not the prelude to the catastrophe, it is its confirmation. Migration produces the effect of “nations within nations”, large migratory caravans colliding with walls made of concrete, of police, military walls; criminal walls, bureaucratic walls, racial and economic walls.

When we talk about migration, we forget the other migration that precedes it on the calendar. That of original populations in their own territories, now converted into merchandises. Have the Palestinian people not become migrants who must be expelled from their own land? Doesn’t the same thing happen with the indigenous peoples around the world?

In Mexico, for example, the native communities are the “strange enemy” that dares to “desecrate” the soil of the system’s farm, located between the Bravo and the Suchiate. To combat this “enemy” there are thousands of soldiers and police, megaprojects, buying of consciences, repression, disappearances, murders and a veritable factory of guilty people (cf. https://frayba.org.mx/). The murders of brother Samir Flores Soberanes and dozens of nature guardians define the current governmental project.

The “fear of the other” reaches levels of frank paranoia. Scarcity, poverty, misfortunes and crime are responsible for a system, but now the blame is transferred to the migrant who must be fought until annihilated.

In “politics” alternatives and offers are offered, each one falser than the next. New cults, nationalisms – new, old or recycled -, the new religion of social networks and its neo prophets: the “influencers”. And war, always war.

The crisis of politics is the crisis of alternatives to chaos. The frenetic succession in governments of right wing, extreme right wing, the non-existent center, and what is presumptuously called «left», is only a reflection of a changing market: if there are new models of cell phones, why not «new” political options?

Nation-States become customs agents of capital. There are no governments, there is only one Border Patrol with different colors and different flags. The dispute between the “Fat State” and the “Starving State” is just a failed concealment of its original nature: repression.

Capital begins to replace neoliberalism as a theoretical-ideological alibi, with its logical consequence: neo-Malthusianism. That is, the war of annihilation of large populations to achieve the well-being of modern society. War is not an irregularity of the machine, it is the “regular maintenance” that will ensure its operation and duration. The radical reduction in demand to compensate for supply limitations.

It would not be about social neo-Darwinism (the strong and rich become stronger and richer, and the weak and poor become weaker and poorer), or Eugenics, which was one of the ideological alibis for the Nazi war of extermination of the Jewish people. Or not only. It would be a global campaign to annihilate the majority population of the world: the dispossessed. Dispossess them of life too. If the planet’s resources are not sufficient and there is no spare planet (or it has not been found yet, although they are working on it), then it is necessary to drastically reduce the population. Shrink the planet through depopulation and reorganization, not only of certain territories, but of the entire world. A Nakba for the entire planet.

If the house can no longer be expanded nor is it feasible to add more floors; if the inhabitants of the basement want to go up to the ground floor, raid the cupboard, and, horror!, they do not stop reproducing; if “ecological paradises” or “self-sustaining” (in reality they are just “panic rooms” of capital) are not enough; if those on the first floor want the rooms on the second and so on; in short, if “modern civilization” and its core (private ownership of the means of production, circulation and consumption), is in danger; well, then you have to expel tenants – starting with those in the basement – until “balance” is achieved.

If the planet is depleted of resources and territories, a kind of «diet» follows to reduce the obesity of the planet. Searching for another planet is having unforeseen difficulties. A space race is foreseeable, but its success is still a very big unknown. Wars, on the other hand, have demonstrated their “effectiveness.”

The conquest of territories brought the exponential growth of the «surplus», «excluded», or «expendable». The wars over distribution continue. Wars have a double advantage: they revive war production and its subsidiaries, and eliminate those surpluses in an expeditious and irremediable manner.

Nationalisms will not only re-emerge or have new breath (hence the coming and going of far-right political offers), they are the necessary spiritual basis for wars. “The person responsible for your shortcomings is whoever is next to you. That’s why your team loses.» The logic of the “cliques”, “gangs” and “hooligans” -national, racial, religious, political, ideological, gender-, encouraging medium, large and small wars in size, but with the same objective of purification.

Ergo: capitalism does not expire, it only transforms.

The Nation-State long ago stopped fulfilling its function as a territory-government-population with common characteristics (language, currency, legal system, culture, etc.). National States are now the military positions of a single army, that of the capital cartel. In the current global crime system, governments are the “Jefes de plaza” that maintain control of a territory. The political fight, electoral or not, is to see who is promoted to head of the plaza. The “cobro de piso” is through taxes and budgets for campaigns and the electoral process. Disorganized crime thus finances its reproduction, although its inability to offer its subjects security and justice is increasingly evident. In modern politics, the heads of national cartels are decided by elections.

A new society does not emerge from this bundle of contradictions. The catastrophe is not followed by the end of the capitalist system, but by a different form of its predatory character. The future of capital is the same as its patriarchal past and presents: exploitation, repression, dispossession and contempt. For every crisis, the system always has a war at hand to solve that crisis. Therefore: it is not possible to outline or build an alternative to collapse beyond our own survival as indigenous communities.

The majority of the population does not see or does not believe the catastrophe is possible. Capital has managed to instill immediatism and denialism in the basic cultural code of those below.

Beyond some native communities, peoples in resistance and some groups and collectives, it is not possible to build an alternative that goes beyond the local minimum.

The prevalence of the notion of the Nation-State in the imaginary below is an obstacle. It keeps struggles separate, isolated, fragmented. The borders that separate them are not only geographical.

-*-

The Contradictions.

Notes:

First series of contradictions:

The struggle of the brothers from the Cholulteca region against the Bonafont company, in Puebla, Mexico (2021-2022). Seeing that their springs were drying up, the residents turned to look at the person responsible: the Bonafont company, from Danone. They organized and took over the bottling plant. The springs were recovered and water and life returned to their lands. Nature thus responded to the action of its defenders and confirmed what the peasants said: the company deprecated water. The repressive force that evicted them, after a time, could not hide the reality: the people defended life, and the company and the government defended death. Mother Earth responded to the question like this: there is a remedy, I correspond with life to those who defend my existence; we can coexist if we respect and care for each other.

The pandemic (2020). The animals recovered their position in some abandoned urban territories, although it was momentary. The water, the air, the flora and fauna had a break and remade themselves, although they were once again overwhelmed in a short time. They thus indicated who the invader was.

The Journey for Life (2021). In the East, that is, in Europe, there are examples of resistance to destruction and, above all, of building another relationship with Mother Earth. The reports, stories and anecdotes are too many for these notes, but they confirm that the reality there is not only that of xenophobia and the idiocy and petulance of their governments. We hope to find similar efforts in other geographies.

Therefore: balanced coexistence with nature is possible. There must be more examples of this. Note: look for more data, review the Extemporánea reports again upon returning from the Journey for Life – Europe Chapter, what did they see at and what did they learn, follow the actions of the CNI and other organizations and movements of sister indigenous peoples in the World. Pay attention to alternatives in urban areas.

Partial conclusion: the contradictions detected put one of the premises of the complex hypothesis in crisis, but not yet the essence. The so-called “green capitalism” could well absorb or supplant these resistances.

Second series of contradictions:

The existence and persistence of the Sixth and the people, groups, collectives, teams, organizations, movements united in the Declaration for Life. And many more people in many places. There are those who resist and rebel, and try to find themselves. But it is necessary to search. And that is what the Seekers teach us: seeking is a necessary, urgent, vital struggle. With everything against them, they cling to the remotest hope.

Partial conclusion: the mere possibility, minimal, tiny, improbable up to a ridiculous percentage, that resistance and rebellion coincide, makes the machine stumble. It is not its destruction, it is true. Not yet. The scarlet witches will be decisive.

The percentage probability of the triumph of life over death is ridiculous, yes. Then there are options: resignation, cynicism, the cult of the immediate (“carpe diem” as vital support).

And yet, there are those who defy walls, borders, rules… and the law of probabilities.

Third series of contradictions: Not necessary. The Excluded Third Rule applies.

General conclusion: therefore, another hypothesis must be raised.

-*-

Ah! Did you think that the initiative or step that the Zapatista people announced was the disappearance of MAREZ and JBG, the inversion of the pyramid and the birth of the GAL?

Well, I’m sorry to ruin your peace of mind. It is not so. Go back to before the so-called “Fist Part” and the discussion about the motives of wolves and shepherds. Already there? Now put this:

Permissu et gratia a praelatis dico vobis visiones mirabiles et terribiles quas oculi mei in his terris viderunt. 30 Anno Resistentise, et prima luce diei viderunt imagines et sonos, quod nunquam antea viderant, et tamen litteras meas semper intuebantur.  Manus scribit et cor dictat.  Erat mane et supra, cicadae et stellae pugnabant pro terra…

With the permission and grace of the superiors I tell you the wonderful and terrible visions which my eyes have seen in these lands. In the year 30 of the resistance, and at the first light of the day they saw images and sounds which they had never seen before, and yet they always looked at my letters. The hand writes and the heart dictates. It was dawn and above, crickets and starlings were fighting for the land…

The Captain.

He did not appear then because you did not know about the death of SupGaleano, nor about the other necessary deaths. But that’s how we Zapatistas are: what we keep silent about is always more than what we say. As if we were determined to design a puzzle that is always unfinished, always with a pending piece, always with that extemporaneous question: what about you?

From the mountains of the Mexican southeast.

The Captain.

40, 30, 20, 10, 2, 1 year later.

P.S.- So what is missing? Well… what’s missing is yet to come.

Twelfth part: Fragments
Fragments of a letter written by Subcommander Insurgent Moises, sent a few months ago, to a geography distant in space but close in thought:

“Sixth Zapatista Commission.
Mexico.

April 2023

(…)

Because then it would be something like, in the face of the terrible storm that is already hitting every corner of the planet, even those who thought themselves safe from all evil, we did not see the storm.

I mean, we don’t just see the storm, and the destruction, death and pain that it brings. We also see what comes next. We want to be the seed of a future root that we will not see, which will then be, in turn, the grass that we will not see either.

The Zapatista vocation, if someone pushes us to a laconic definition, is “to be a good seed.”

We do not intend to leave for inheritance a conception of the world to the next generations. Neither to inherit our miseries, our resentments, our pain, our phobias, or our philias. Nor for them to be a mirror with a more or less approximate image of what we assume is good or bad.

What we want to leave for inheritance is life. What other generations do with it will be their decision and, above all, their responsibility. Just as we inherited life from our ancestors, we took what we considered valuable, and we assigned ourselves a task. And, of course, we take responsibility for the decision we made, for what we do in order to accomplish that task, and for the consequences of our actions and omissions.

When we say that “It is not necessary to conquer the world, it is enough to do it again”, we move away, definitively and irremediably, from the current and previous political conceptions. The world we see is not perfect, not even close. But it is better, without a doubt. A world where everyone is who they are, without shame, without being persecuted, mutilated, imprisoned, murdered, marginalized, oppressed.

What is that world called? What system supports it or is dominant? Well, that will be decided, or not, by those who live there.

A world where the desires to hegemonize and homogenize learn from what they caused in this time and other times, and fail in that world to come.

A world in which humanity is not defined by equality (which only hides the segregation of those who “are not equal”), but by difference.

A world where difference is not persecuted, but celebrated. A world in which the stories told are not those of those who win, because no one wins.

A world where the stories that are told, whether in intimacy, or in the arts, or in culture, are like those that our grandmothers and grandfathers told us, and that teach not who won, because no one won and, therefore, nobody lost.

Those stories that allowed us to imagine terrible and wonderful things and in which, between the rain and the smell of cooking corn, coffee and tobacco, we managed to imagine an incomplete world, yes, clumsy too, but much better than the world that our ancestors and our contemporaries have suffered and are suffering.

We do not intend to leave for inheritance laws, manuals, worldviews, catechisms, rules, routes, destinations, steps, companies, which, if you look closely, is what almost all political proposals aspire to.

Our goal is simpler and terribly more difficult: to leave life for inheritance.

(…)

Because we see that this terrible storm, whose first gales and rains are already hitting the entire planet, is arriving very quickly and very strongly. So, we don’t see the immediate. Or yes, but according to what we see in the long term. Our immediate reality is defined or in accordance with two realities: one of death and destruction that will bring out the worst in human beings, regardless of their social class, their color, their race, their culture, their geography, their language, their size; and another of starting over, from the rubble of a system that did what it does best, that is, to destroy.

Why do we say that the nightmare that already exists, and that will only get worse, will be followed by an awakening? Well, because there are those, like us, who are determined to look at that possibility. Minimal, it’s true. But every day and at all hours, everywhere, we fight so that this minimal possibility grows and, although small and unimportant –just like a tiny seed—, it grows and, one day, it becomes the tree of life that will be of all colors or won’t be at all.

We are not the only ones. In these 30 years we have leaned out into many worlds. Different in ways, times, geographies, own stories, calendars. But equal only in the effort and the absurd gaze placed on an untimely time that will happen, not because of destiny, not because of divine design, not because someone loses so that someone wins. No, it will be because we are working on it, fighting, living and dying for it.

And there will be a meadow, and there will be flowers, and trees, and rivers, and animals of all kinds. And there will be grass because there will be roots. And there will be a girl, a boy, a child who will be alive. And the day will come when she/he will have to take responsibility for the decision she/he makes about what to do with that life.

Isn’t that freedom?

(…)

And we will tell you the story of the indigenous woman of Mayan roots, over 40 years old, who fell dozens of times while learning to ride a 20-wheeled bicycle. But also, got up the same number of times and is now riding a 24 or 26-wheeled bicycle and, with it, she will reach the medicinal plants courses.

Of the health promoter who will arrive on time, to a remote community without a paved road, to administer anti-viper serum to an elderly man attacked by a nauyaca viper.

Of the indigenous, autonomous authority who, with her ‘nagüa’ and her ‘morraleta’, will arrive on time to an assembly of “as women that we are” and will be able to give the talk on feminine hygiene.

And that, when there was no vehicle, gasoline, driver or passable road, to the extent of our development and possibilities, health would reach a champa in a corner of the Lacandon jungle.

A champa where, around a stove, raining and without electricity, the education promoter will arrive, also by bicycle, and, among the smell of cooked corn, coffee and tobacco, she will hear a terrible and wonderful story, told in the voice and tongue of an old woman. And in that story there will be talk about Votán, who was neither man nor woman nor “otroa”. And it was not one, but many. And she will hear her say: “that is what we are, Votán, guardian and heart of the people.”

And that, already at school, that education promoter will tell the Zapatista boys and girls that story. Well, more like the version that she will make of what she remembers having heard, because it couldn’t really be heard, due to the noise of the rain and the muffled voice of the woman who was telling the story.

And about “the cumbia of the bicycle” that some musical youth group will create and that will relieve us all from hearing “the cumbia of the frog” for the umpteenth time.

And our dead, to whom we owe honor and life, perhaps will say “well, we have finally entered the age of the wheel.” And at night they will look at the starry sky, without clouds to hide it, and they will say “Bicycles! From there, the spaceships follow.” And they will laugh, I know. And someone alive will start a tape recorder and a cumbia will be heard that all of us, the living and the dead, hope is not “la del moño colorado.” 

(…) 

From the mountains of the Mexican southeast.
In the name of the Zapatista boys, girls, men, women and ‘otroas’.
Subcommander Insurgent Moisés.
General Coordinator of the “Tour for Life”.
Mexico, April 2023.”

These fragments are taken from the original, and with the authorizations of the sender and recipient.
I attest.

The Captain.
November 2023

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.

Al CCRI-CG-EZLN

Al Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional

A la Comisión Sexta del EZLN

Al SubComandante Insurgente Moisés

Al Capitán Insurgente Marcos

A los Gobiernos Autónomos Locales, GAL

A los Colectivos de Gobiernos Autónomos Zapatistas, CGAZ

A las Asambleas de Colectivos de Gobiernos Autónomos ZAPATISTAS, ACGAZ

Al Congreso Nacional Indígena-Concejo Indígena de Gobierno

A Ma. de Jesús Patricio Martínez, Vocera del CNI-CIG

A los Pueblos del Mundo que resisten contra el sistema Capitalista y Patriarcal

A los Pueblos, Tribus, Naciones, Comunidades y Barrios Originarios

que nunca fueron conquistados

A la Sexta Nacional e Internacional

A las Redes de Resistencia y Rebeldía

A la Europa Insumisa, Digna y Rebelde

A quienes suscribieron la Declaración por la Vida

A las Madres y Padres de nuestros 43 Normalistas de Ayotzinapa

A los medios libres, independientes, alternativos o como se llamen…

Hermanas y hermanos, tod@s

A 40 años de la fundación del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN y

en la víspera de cumplir 30 años del Levantamiento Zapatista…,

NOSOSTR@S DECIMOS, NO ESTÁN SOL@S

Seguiremos caminando con Resistencia y Rebeldía, seguiremos construyendo un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos, seguiremos luchando contra este sistema capitalista y patriarcal que impone militarización, para salvaguardar sus megaproyectos de muerte y destrucción, seguiremos resistiendo, porque nuestra lucha es contra el despojo del territorio, la madres tierra y la vida.

Hoy, en el marco de sus cumpleaños número 40, y asumiendo que Dení somos tod@s, ustedes nos han dichos de manera muy puntual… “Ya podemos sobrevivir a la tormenta como comunidades zapatistas que somos. Pero ahora se trata no sólo de eso, sino de atravesar ésta y otras tormentas que vienen, atravesar la noche, y llegar a esa mañana, dentro de 120 años, donde una niña empieza a aprender que ser libre es también ser responsable de esa libertad”

Nostr@s, desde la Casa de los Pueblos y Comunidades Indígenas “Samir Flores Soberanes”, después de 531 años de resistencia y rebeldía, hace tres años decidimos tomar las oficinas del “indigenismos oficial, lugar donde despachaba el traidor de los pueblos, Adelfo Regino Montes, quien simulaba, representar a los pueblos y no los representa; nunca diseñó ni promovió políticas, programas, y acciones públicas que garantizaran los derechos de los pueblos originarios y las comunidades indigenas, al contrario oficializó e institucionalizó el despojo de la Madres Tierra.

Herman@s del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, les decimos y reiteramos, que tomamos el INPI, también como un acto de repudio a los ataques paramilitares y a la guerra contrainsurgente en contra del EZLN y las Comunidades Zapatistas; así mismo, en contra de la guerra y asesinato que se cometen contra los pueblos originarios y comunidades indígenas pertenecientes al CNI-CIG

Por todo ello, en este su cumpleaños, ratificamos nuestra vocación de lucha, resistencia y nuestro paso firme a lado de ustedes. Sabremos sortear la tormenta que vivimos en esta urbe donde solo cuentan las cifras y el Folklore como ganancia político-electoral, vivimos en una “Ciudad Innovadora y de Derechos” que solo justifica el despojo y la gentrificación; es decir, los pueblos originarios y comunidades indígenas no contamos, no nos cent no nos escuchan. Es por ello que, recordando lo que el SubComandante Insurgente Moisés, dijera en 2020…, ¿A quién le importa que un pequeño, pequeñísimo, grupo de originarios, de indígenas, viva, es decir, luche?

Sin embargo, muy a pesar de ello, de su indiferencia gubernamental, aquí estamos y resistimos.

Por tanto reiteramos que No nos Vendemos, No Claudicamos y No Traicionamos

ATENTAMENTE

Zapata Vive, la Lucha Sigue

Por la reconstitución integral de nuestros Pueblos

Viva el Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional

Vivan los Gobiernos Autónomos Locales, GAL

Vivan los Colectivos de Gobiernos Autónomos Zapatistas, CGAZ

Vivan las Asambleas de Colectivos de Gobiernos Autónomos ZAPATISTAS, ACGAZ

Nunca más una Ciudad sin sus pueblos y comunidades indígenas

Desde la Casa de los Pueblos y Comunidades Indígenas “Samir Flores Soberanes”

COMUNIDAD INDÍGENA OTOMÍ RESIDENTE EN LA CDMX

Ciudad de México a 17 de noviembre de 2023

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.

Produced by Los Tercios Compas. Mountains of the Mexican Southeast. Copyleft November 2023.
With a Little Help from My Friends, Lennon y McCartney. Version by Joe Cocker.

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.

Manuel Gómez Vázquez es liberado después de 2 años, 11 meses y 7 días injustamente privado de su libertad.

El día de hoy se emitió sentencia absolutoria que ordenó la inmediata libertad para Manuel Gómez Vázquez, Base de Apoyo del #EZLN, al no comprobarse ninguna responsabilidad en la comisión del delito.

Agradecemos infinitamente la solidaridad de todas las personas, colectivos, organizaciones de derechos humanos que hicieron posible la libertad del compañero.

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.

Hoy, 16 de noviembre de 2023, a las 12:00 horas, el Juzgado de Control y Tribunal de Enjuiciamiento Región III del Distrito Judicial de Ocosingo y Yajalón emitirá sentencia de Manuel Gómez Vázquez, base de apoyo zapatista, que desde hace dos años y 11 meses se encuentra detenido, acusado falsamente de homicidio.

El pasado martes, 14 de noviembre, inició la audiencia de juicio oral, que ya había sido diferida en tres ocasiones anteriores. Sobre la audiencia, dice la Red Ajmaq:

En medio de este teatro de injusticia nos quedamos con la imagen y sensación de que el compañero Manuel se mostró tal cual es: zapatista, digno, fuerte y rebelde, con la mirada al frente, los pies firmes y la sangre sabia. Su papá y mamá respaldando con amor y firmeza la vida. Estos tres compas eran una luz dentro de tanta obscuridad, falsedad, deshonestidad y mentira. Ell@s son un ejemplo de esperanza y dignidad de lo que afuera representa la organización del EZLN. Nos hubiera gustado mucho tomar una foto, para que tod@s ustedes fueran testig@s de todo lo que hemos presenciado, pero no permiten entrar con celular.

Durante el juicio, la Fiscalía Indígena sólo desahogó tres pruebas, ninguna de las cuales acredita la participación de Manuel en el delito del que se le acusa, y no presentó ningún testigo.

Junto con muchas otras organizaciones e individuos en México y el mundo, exigimos al Poder Judicial del estado de Chiapas la liberación inmediata y sin condiciones de Manuel.

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.

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.

Noticias de abajo 15 de noviembre 2023

• PANAMÁ: Panamá en crisis por el extractivismo minero. 4 semanas de paro contra las mineras y las leyes que el mal gobierno ha impuesto para defenderlas. Represión y muerte ha sido la respuesta a las demandas populares. ¿Qué es el discurso del odio? Con información de Radio Temblor.
  https://www.radiotemblor.org/que-es-el-discurso-de-odio/
  https://www.radiotemblor.org/panama-en-crisis-por-el-extractivismo-minero/
• BOLIVIA: En la línea de FUEGO. Voces de San Buenaventura Y Rurenabaque.
  El portal de fuga radial desde Bolivia nos comparte un audio reportaje muy impactante de la situación desesperante que viven con los incendios en la Amazonia boliviana y la nula respuesta del Estado y autoridades. https://fugaradial.org/
• PALESTINA: Informe de la situación en Gaza en reporte del embajador de Palestina en Argentina.
  https://palestina.int.ar/.
• GUERRERO: Entrevistas a damnificados del Huracán Otis en la costa de Guerrero. Por Mar.
• CDMX: Comunidad de San Gregorio Atlapulco exige que la Biblioteca Comunitaria sea entregada al Pueblo.
• CHIAPAS: Libertad para Manuel Gómez, preso por ser zapatista
  Episodio de #Notifrayba sobre la detención de nuestro amigo Manuel Gómez Vázquez, rehén del gobierno de Chiapas, recluido injustamente por ser zapatista, desde hace dos años y once meses.
  https://archive.org/details/notifrayba_manuel_alta

Tenth Part: Regarding pyramids and their uses and customary regimes.
Conclusions from the critical analysis of MAREZ and JBG.
(Fragment of the interview with Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés
during the months of August-September 2023,
in the mountains of Southeast Mexico)

November 2023.

Introduction. –

Who built Thebes of the 7 gates? In the books you will read
the names of kings. Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?
And Babylon, many times demolished, who raised it up so many times?
In what houses of gold glittering Lima did its builders live? Where,
the evening that the Great Wall of China was finished, did the masons go? Great Rome
is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them?

Bertold Brecht.

Known is the obsession that dominant systems have, throughout their history, in rescuing the image of the defeated dominant classes or castes. As if in the winner inhabited the worry of neutralizing the image of the defeated: avoiding his fall. In the study of the remains of the defeated civilization or culture, emphasis is usually placed on the great palaces of the rulers, the religious buildings of the high hierarchy, and the statues or monuments that the dominant people of that time made of themselves.

Not always with genuine anthropological or archaeological interest (it is not the same thing), for example, are the pyramids studied. Its architectural-religious sense –sometimes also scientific–, and what tourist brochures (and political programs across the spectrum) call “the splendor of the past.”

It is natural that the different governments take notice and, not without longing sighs, concentrate on kings and queens. The great palaces and pyramids can be pointed out as references of the scientific advance of those times, of the social organization and of the causes «of its development and decline», but no ruler likes to see his future reflected in the past. That is why they twist past history and it is possible to reschedule foundations of cities, empires and “transformations». So, without realizing it, every selfie taken at archaeological sites hides more than what it shows. Up there, the winner of today will be the defeated of tomorrow.

But, if there are no mentions about these constructions having someone who designed them –their architects, engineers and artists–, there will be even lesser references to «the labor force», that is, to the men and women on whose backs (in more than a sense) were built the wonders that amaze tourists from all over the world, while they make time to go to the club, the mall and the beach.

From that point to ignoring that the descendants of that “labor force” remain alive and active, with language and culture, there is only one step. The natives who built, for example, the pyramids of Teotihuacán and the Mayan area in the Mexican southeast, exist (that is, resist) and, sometimes, they add to their resistance that subversive component that is rebellion.

In the case of Mexico, the different governments prefer the natives as living crafts and, sometimes, as choreography ad hoc. The current government does not represent any change in this (well, not only in that, but that is not the point). Native peoples continue to be objects of alms (that aspirin for scoundrels), electoral hauling, artisanal curiosity and a vanishing point for those who administer the ongoing destruction: “I am going to destroy your life, that is, your territory; but don’t worry, I’m going to preserve the pyramids of those who exploited your ancestors and those funny things you say, and dress and do.»

Having said this, this “image” of the pyramid –the narrow upper tip and the wide lower base–, is now used by Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés to explain to us something of what was the analysis (ferocious and implacable, in my opinion) of the work of the MAREZ and Good Government Juntas.

The Captain

Some history, not much, just 30 years

The MAREZ and Good Government Juntas were not all bad. We must remember how we got to them. For the Zapatista towns they were like a school of political literacy. A self-literacy.

Most of us did not know how to read, write, or speak Spanish. Furthermore, we spoke different languages. That was good, because then our idea and our practice did not come from outside, but rather we had to search in our heads, in our history as indigenous people, in our own way.

We had never had the opportunity to govern ourselves. We were always governed. Even before the Spanish, the Aztec empire, which the current government loves very much –I think because they like bossy people— oppressed many languages ​​and cultures. Not only in what is now Mexico, also in what is now Central America.

The situation we were in was one of death and despair. They closed everything to us. There were no doors, no windows, no cracks. As if they wanted us to drown. So, as they say, we had to open a crack in that wall that enclosed us and condemned us. As if everything were darkness and with our blood we lit a little light. That was the Zapatista uprising, a little light in the darkest night.

Then it came that many people asked for a ceasefire, that we had to talk. The citizens already know about that. The same thing had happened to many of them as to us, that bad governments never fulfilled their word. And they do not comply because governments are the main oppressors. So we had to choose if we hope and wait that one day they comply, or if we look for a solution on our own. And we chose to find our way.

And well, you had to organize for that. We had organized and prepared for 10 years to take up arms, to die and kill. And then it turns out that we had to organize ourselves to live. And living is freedom. And justice. And to be able to govern ourselves as people, not as little children which is the way governments see us.

That’s where it got into our heads that we have to make a government that obeys. In other words, that it did not do as it pleased, but rather, did what the people say. In other words, “command by obeying”, which are the words that today’s scoundrels plagiarize (in other words, they do not only plagiarize theses. Editorial note).

So with the autonomous municipalities we learned that we can govern ourselves. And that was possible because many people supported us, without any interests, to find the path of life. In other words, those people did not come to see what they could get –like those that I imagine you are going to tell outsiders when you talk about 30 years—, but rather they really committed themselves to a life project. And there were those who wanted to tell us how we should do it. But we did not take up arms to change the boss. There is no good boss. But there were other people who did respect our thoughts, our way.

The value of the word.

When we obtain that support, it is like a commitment that we make. If we say that we need support to create schools and clinics, to prepare health and education promoters, to give an example, then we have to comply. In other words, we cannot say that it is for one thing and use it for another. We had then and have now to be honest, because these people do not come to exploit us, but to encourage us. That’s how we saw it.

So we have to put up with the attacks and the bullshit from the bad governments, from the landowners, from the big companies, who are trying hard to test us to see if we can endure it or it is easy for us to fall into a provocation so they are able to accuse us of telling lies, that we also want power and pay. And the thing about power is that it is like a disease that kills good ideas and corrupts, that is, it makes people sick. And there you have a person who seems like a good person, well, with power, he goes crazy. Or maybe he was already crazy and power sort of stripped naked his heart.

So we think that we need to organize, for example, our health. Because of course we saw and see that what the government does is a big lie that is only to steal and does not care that people die, especially if they are indigenous.

And it happened that, when we make that crack in the system and look out, we see many things. But also many people see us. And among those people, there are those who looked at us and took the risk of helping and supporting us. Because what if we are liars and don’t do what we say? But hey, they took a risk and they committed us.

Look, out there, in the cities, giving your word is no good. They can say one thing in one moment, and a minute later they say the opposite and is as if nothing had happened, all is calm. There is, for example, what they call “mañanera”, that one day they say one thing and another day the opposite. But, as it pays, they applaud him and are happy because he gives them alms that do not even come from his work, but from what working people give to governments with taxes, which are like the “cobro de piso” of disorganized crime.

So those people support us and we start little by little with preventive medicine. Since we had already recovered the lands, we improved our diet, but more was needed. So, health. We must recover herbal knowledge, but it is not enough, science is also needed. And thanks to doctors, that we call “fraternities” because they are like our brothers, who got on board and guided us. So the first Health trainers were born or formed, that is, those who prepare the promoters.

And also education, especially Castilian. Because for us Spanish is very important because it is like the bridge through which we can communicate and understand each other between different languages. For example, if you speak Tzeltal, you are going to struggle to communicate with the Cho’ol language, or Tzotzil, or Tojolabal, or Zoque, or Mame, or Quiché. So, you have to learn Spanish. And autonomous schools are very important for that. For example, our generation speaks combined tongue and Spanish, that is, not all well, that is, we speak crooked. But there are already generations of young people, who learned in autonomous schools, who know Castilian better than some citizens. The late SupMarcos said that these young people could correct the writings of university students. And you know that, before, to make a complaint, you had to go to the Command to write it. But then not anymore. In each autonomous authority there was one writer, and well, it worked.

Then it is like one advancement kind of pushes another. And soon after, these young people want more, to learn more. So we organize our health in each town, each region and zone. We are advancing in each area of ​​health, midwives, medicinal plants, bones, laboratories, dentists, ultrasound, among other areas, there are clinics. And the same in school, that is, education. We say school, because we adults also lack education, it is very broad for us, education, and not just children and adolescents.

Furthermore, we organized productive work because we already had land, which was previously in the hands of landowners. And so we work as a family and as a collective in the cornfield, the bean fields, the coffee fields, vegetables, and farms. And some livestock, which is used more for economic emergencies and for holidays. The collective work allowed the economic independence of women comrades and that brought many more things. But they have already talked about that.

A school.

In other words, we learned to govern ourselves and thus we were able to put aside bad governments and organizations that say they are leftist, progressive and I don’t know what else. 30 years learning what it means to be autonomous, that is, we direct ourselves, we govern ourselves. And it has not been easy, because all the governments that have passed from PRI, PAN, PRD, PT, VERDE and MORENA, their desire to destroy us does not end. For this reason, just as in past governments, in this one they say that we have already disappeared, or that we have already fled, or that we are already very defeated, or that there is no longer any Zapatista, that we went to the United States or Guatemala. But you see, well here we are. In resistance and rebellion.

And the most important thing we learned in the MAREZ is that autonomy is not about theory, about writing books and making speeches. It is something that needs to be done. And we have to do it as towns, and not wait for someone to come and do it for us.

All of this is, let’s say, the good thing about MAREZ: a school of practical autonomy.

And the Good Government Juntas were also very important because with them we learned to exchange ideas about struggles with other brothers from Mexico and the world, where we saw it right we took it and where we saw it was not, we discarded it. Some tell us that we have to obey just as they say. Where is that going to happen? If we put our lives at stake. In other words, that is what we are worth: our blood and that of generations that came before and those to come. We are not here for anyone to come and tell us what we are going to do, even if they say that they are very knowledgeable. With the JBG we learned to meet and organize, to think, to give an opinion, to propose, to discuss, to study, to analyze and to decide for ourselves.

So, as a summary, I tell you that the MAREZ and JBG helped us learn that theory without practice is pure words. And practice without theory, well it is as if you walked like a blind man. And since there is no theory of what we started to do, that is, there is no manual or book, then we have also had to make our own theory. We stumbled through theory and practice. I think that’s why the theorists and the revolutionary vanguards don’t like us very much, because we didn’t just take away their jobs. We also showed them that talking is one thing and reality is another. And here we are, the ignorant and backwards, as they call us, the ones who cannot find the way because we are peasants. But here we are and even if they deny us, we exist. Too bad.

The Pyramid.

Well, now it’s time for the bad things. Or rather not bad, but it proved that it will no longer be useful for what is to come. In addition to the inherent flaws. As you tell me, we will talk later about how all of this started, about how it got into our heads, we’ll see it later.

The main problem is the damn pyramid. The pyramid separated the authorities from the towns, they distanced themselves between towns and authorities. The proposals from authorities did not go down as they were to the people, nor do the opinions of the people reach the authorities.

Because of the pyramid, a lot of information is cut, the guidelines, suggestions, support of ideas that the CCRI comrades explain. The Good Government Junta does not fully transmit and the same thing happens when things are explained to the Authorities of the Zapatista Rebel Autonomous Municipalities, the same again is repeated when the MAREZ inform the assemblies of authorities of towns, and finally this is what happens with the authorities of the towns when they explain to each town. Many cuts of information or interpretations, or additions that were not there originally.

And many efforts were also made in the training of authorities and every 3 years new ones leave and enter. And the main base of village authorities is not being prepared. In other words, no relays were formed. “Government collective” we said and it was not fully fulfilled, the work was rarely done this way and the greater part what not fulfilled, both in MAREZ and in the JBG.

It was already falling into wanting to decide themselves, the authorities, the tasks and the decisions, as in MAREZ and JBG. They wanted to leave aside the 7 principles of commanding by obeying.

There were also NGOs, who forcefully want the projects that they had in the JBG and the MAREZ to be accepted and they are not what the people needed. And people who visited remain friends of a family or a town and they only sent some help to them. And some visitors outright wanted to direct us and treat us like their waiters. And so with great kindness we had to remind them that we are Zapatistas.

And there was also, in some MAREZ and JBG, poor administration of people’s resources, and, of course, they were sanctioned.

In other words, in summary, it was seen that the structure of how we were governed, as a pyramid, was not the way. It’s not from below, it’s from above.

If Zapatismo were only the EZLN, it is easy to give orders. But the government must be civil, not military. Then the people have to find their way, their way and their time. Where and when to do what. The military should be only for defense. Pyramid may be useful for military purposes, but not for civilian purposes. That’s what we see.

On another occasion we will tell what the situation is here in Chiapas. But now we just say that it is like anywhere else. It is worse than last years. Now they kill them in their homes, in their streets, in their towns. And there is no government that sees and listens to the demands of the people. And they don’t do anything because they themselves are the criminals.

Not only that. We have already said that we see many misfortunes that are going to arrive or that are already here. If you see that it is going to rain or that the first drops are already falling and the sky is black as a politician’s soul, then you take out your nylon and look for where you are going to go. The problem is that there is nowhere to protect yourself. You have to build your own shelter.

The thing is that we saw that with MAREZ and JBG we will not be able to face the storm. We need the Deni to grow and live and for all the other seven generations to be born and live.

-For all this and the rest, we entered into a great series of reflections and came to the conclusion that we only have left a great discussion of all the towns and analysis, of how to face the new and bad situation and at the same time how we are going to continue to govern us. Meetings and assemblies were held, area by area, until an agreement was reached that there would no longer be Good Government Juntas or Zapatista Rebel Autonomous Municipalities. And that we need a new structure, that is, to accommodate ourselves in another way.

Of course, this proposal is not just about reorganizing. It is also a new initiative. A new challenge. But I think that’s what we’ll say later.

So in general, without much fuss, then, the MAREZ and JBG were very useful at that stage. But another step follows and those clothes are already too short for us, and they break and even though you mend them, it’s for nothing. Because there will come a time when you’re left with pure rags.

So what we did is cut the pyramid. So we cut it from the tip. Or rather, we turned it upside down.

Do we celebrate the past or the future?

We have to keep walking and in the middle of the storm. But we as towns are already used to walking with everything against us.

This coming December and January, we do not celebrate the 30 years of the uprising. For us every day is a celebration, because we are alive and fighting.

We will celebrate that we began a path that will take us at least 120 years, maybe more. We’ve been rolling for more than 500 years, so it won’t be long, just over a century. And that is no longer so far away. It is, as José Alfredo Jiménez says, “just there behind the mound.”

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
Subcommander Insurgent Moisés.

(Fragment of the interview conducted by Captain Marcos, for the Tercios Compas. Copyleft Mexico, November 2023. Authorization of the JBG… ah wow, if there are no more Juntas… well, of the MAREZ… well, neither… Well, the thing is that it is authorized. The interview was conducted the old-fashioned way, that is, like reporters used to do, with a notebook and pen. Now they don’t even go to the place to look for the note, they take it from social networks. Yes, a shame, my man).

I attest.

The Captain, practicing the cumbia “Sopa de caracol”. Dance! No matter there’s mud!