World
The Landing
The Landing
«El desembarco» by León Gieco performed by León Gieco (Vocals and Harmonica), Jairo (Vocals and Djembe), Silvina Moreno (Vocals), Sandra Corizzo (Vocals), Diego Boris (Harmonica), Antonio Druetta (Mandolin), Pablo Elizondo (Guitar), Luciana Elizondo (Viola da gamba). 2021.
The Landing
From the Other Europe.
Individuals, Groups, Collectives, Organizations and European movements – in collaboration with the 421st Squadron.
June 2021.
P.S. – There is a song by León Gieco[i] called «El Desembarco» [The Landing]. I had it archived in a “pending” folder for years, wondering when and in which video to use it. In the end, I thought that when the time came, I would know.
I thought, as I watched Marijose set foot on Galician soil, not about the song, but about the invisible web that brought music together with a buccaneer boot, worn on a native Mayan foot, stepping onto Iberian soil.
I did a little research and it turns out that the song was released in 2011 on an album of the same name. That was 10 years ago … or more. When was this song born in the heart of León Gieco, our unwitting brother – or sworn brother like Juan Villoro[ii] – who we hold within the great embrace that is Latin America? Months or years before?
Did León dream what the lyrics say?
Is it the same dream had by Marijose when, in April’s fiery embrace, it was decided that Marijose [elloa] would be the first to disembark? Is it the same dream that the late SupMarcos had when he wrote «Sailor on the Mountain» years before the uprising? The same one that kept Don Durito[iii] of the Lacandón Jungle awake when he imagined (or made—we’ll never know) his journey through European lands? Did Comandanta Ramona, the first to leave Zapatista territory and from whose path the National Indigenous Congress was born, dream that dream? Is it the same one dreamed by then Lieutenant Colonel Insurgente Moisés when – in 2010, on the outskirts of a hut in the mountains of the Mexican southeast – he received the rank of Subcomandante? The one that Señor Ik, SubPedro, and 45 other Zapatistas had moments before falling in combat in January 1994? The one that, collectively, the indigenous Sami people – in the northernmost north of Europe – put forward in their Declaration for Life? Was it the dream of Gonzalo Guerrero[iv] over 500 years ago when he made the path and destiny of the Mayan people his own? Is it that dream that unsettled Jacinto Canek[v]?
Did this dream alleviate to some extent the passing of Comandante Ismael, Dr. Paulina Fernández C., Oscar Chávez, Jaime Montejo, Jean Robert, Paul Leduc, Vicente Rojo, Mario Molina, Ernesto Cardenal and so many family members – all brothers and sisters without knowing it – that we have lost in recent months?
Is it the dream that inspired Europe from below to organize such a terrible and marvelous reception in Vigo?
The one that now travels through the streets, neighborhoods, countryside, and coasts of Europe repeating «Will July rain on Paris»?
Is it the dream that inspired the voices that found echo in the emblematic reflections on the beaches of Vigo and crossed the Atlantic to now take nest in the Zapatista communities?
Because the 421st Squadron descends not from a ship, but from La Montaña, «without weapons, and for life.»
Is this what humanity is? That which weaves the long and hidden thread that unites different and distant geographies and links calendars near and far?
I do not know. But I would recommend to those whose curse is art: Give expression to that dream. Whichever it is, let it be yours.
Because you never know when and where another gaze, another ear, other hands, another step, another heart in another calendar and another geography, will need to take it down from the great shelf of hopes and dreams, open its entrails and plant it, like a seed, in painful reality.
I bear witness,
SupGaleano.
June 2021.
—
[i] Argentine folk rock performer, composer and interpreter.
[ii] Juan Villoro is a Mexican writer and journalist and the son of philosopher Luis Villoro.
[iii] Don Durito’s adventures across Europe in 1999: https://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/1999/10/13/la-hora-de-los-pequenos-durito-carta-4a/
[iv] Gonzalo Guerrero was a sailor from Palos, Andalucia, Spain who was shipwrecked along the Yucatán Peninsula and taken prisoner by the local Maya. Over time he took on Mayan culture as his own, became a Mayan chief, and died fighting alongside the Maya against Spanish conquistadors in defense of Mayan territory.
[v] Jacinto Canek – 18th-century Maya revolutionary who fought against the Spanish in the Yucatán Peninsula of New Spain.
(Español) Cartas náuticas III: Desembarca el Escuadrón 421 en Galicia
A nombre de todas las mujeres, niños, hombres, ancianos y, claro, otroas zapatistas, declaro que el nombre de esta tierra, a la que sus naturales llaman ahora Europa, de aquí en adelante se llamará “Slumil K’ajxemk’op”, que quiere decir “Tierra insumisa”, tierra que no se resigna, que no desmaya. Y así será conocida por propios y extraños mientras haya alguien aquí que no se rinda, que no se venda y que no claudique.
Con esas palabras Marijose, otroa zapatista del Escuadrón 421, rebautizó el “viejo continente” este martes 22 de junio de 2021 en la ciudad de Vigo, Galicia.
Quinientos veintiocho años después de que la carabela La Pinta arribara a estas costas tras el primer y fatídico “encuentro” entre el continente europeo y el que poco después sería nombrado América, llegó a Galiza el navío La Montaña, tras 50 días de navegación desde Isla Mujeres en el Caribe mexicano.
A bordo trajo a siete zapatistas, el Escuadrón 421 –cuatro mujeres, dos hombres, unoa otroa–. A bordo trajo cinco siglos de resistencia y 38 años de lucha zapatista. A bordo trajo oídos y miradas atentas y corazones abiertos, para encontrarse con quienes resisten y luchan contra el sistema enloquecido que atenta contra la humanidad. A bordo trajo la utopía de un verdadero Encuentro que no sea de muerte sino de vida, de lucha, de resistencia y rebeldía.
Desde hace días, empezaron a llegar a Galiza delegaciones de muchos rincones de Slumil K’ajxemk’op y de otros países, para darle la bienvenida al Escuadrón 421, la avanzada de una “invasión zapatista” a la que se sumarán muchos y muchas más que llegarán por vía aérea, incluyendo a niñas y niños. No muy lejos del local del desembarque, el Centro Social das Pedriñas, renombrado “Caracol Base de la Europa Zapatista”, se acondicionó para recibir a lxs delegadxs que llegaron de las muchas geografías.