Quinceava Parte por Enlace Zapatista en Vimeo.

Images of the craftmanship by insurgents in preparation for the celebrations of the 30 years of the beginning of the war against oblivion. Photos and videos, courtesy of Tercios Compas. Copyleft; December 2023. Music Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku (Mi corazón encantado), Piano: RuRu, Violin: Kathie

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.

Thirteenth Part: TWO FOOTBALL GAMES AND THE SAME REBELLION.

“Football is the continuation of politics by other means.”
Don Durito de La Lacandona (“DD”, for legal purposes).

November 2023

I.- Eve of the Journey for Life – Europe chapter.

A football challenge has been received from a European women’s team that resists and fights.

SupGaleano has appointed himself “technical director” of the “Ixchel – Ramona” team, made up of militiawomen. As it should be, the Sup has studied the rival team. He gathers the compañeras who will make the trip. Analyzes in detail the skills and characteristics of each of the players. He goes to Subcommander Moisés and gives his diagnosis: “they are going to tear us into pieces.” SubMoy looks at it with a “so?” face, as if taking it for granted. But the now deceased has not finished: “But I have a secret plan, as Dení says. With that we will revolutionize football and redefine it in its essence: the game.”

Subcommander Insurgent Moisés, coordinator of the tour, is quite busy with the preparation courses, birth certificates, passports and the design of the route to follow, so he leaves SupGaleano to proceed “at his discretion.” The future deceased smiles and says: “Discretion is my second last name” (don’t ask me what his first last name was because it would take several pages to explain it to you).

The deceased in the making begins the preparation of the women’s team. But, for his strategy to be successful, he needs the support of the fearsome, terrible and terrifying “Popcorn Commando”, which, at that moment, is trying to open a hole in the training ship in which the so-called “Squadron 421” was prepared. Disillusioned because, before finishing the work below the waterline, the ship had been transformed into an imposing two-engine plane, they went to consult with SupGaleano what they could do to set the aircraft on fire. The Sup convinced them that it was not advisable to burn it, that it was better to wait until it was in full flight to shoot it down from within. The beloved Amado and Chinto objected: if the plane falls, Commando Palomitas will also fall. The Sup responded that it was not the time to dwell on trifles. Furthermore, the Command was required for a higher task, than sabotaging an air trip that did not even complete the payment for the tickets, not to mention the lack of passports, and that the majority of the so-called “Division Aerotransportada La Extemporánea” was getting dizzy in the truck.

When the Popcorn Commando, the Sup, Tzotz, Tragón and Pelusa met in the ultra-secret bunker that is in the Puy platform of the Tzotz Choj area, they proceeded to refine the details of what, from then on, would be known worldwide as the “Brilliant and Excellent Plan to Defeat a Rival Better Prepared, Trained and Equipped than Us” (BEPDRMPEEN, for its acronym in Spanish), subtitle “And that they have better technique and control of the ball.”

The top secret meeting continued its normal course. That is to say, Chuy took away Lupita’s chamoy lollypop, Verónica gave Chuy a slap and, as if it were the Supreme Government, she kept Chuy’s lollypop, Lupita’s and her own. El Chinto and the beloved Amado insisted that their bicycles had broken down “just like that” and that the Monarch had to fix them. Pelusa, Tragón and Tzotz looked at the table looking for cookies, and Sup gave a master class on “How to win a soccer game with everything against you.”

The apparent chaos subsided when the Sup took out, from who knows where, a box of “Choki The Devil’s Cookie”, and only then – after 5 packages had been dispatched – the missions were distributed, the schedule was made, and they stuffed themselves with the sixth package “in honor of the future fallen men.” “And women,” Chuy felt obliged to add, only to receive from Verónica another zap model “gender equality does not apply in misfortune.” Lupita approved the action with the chamoy lollypop that Sup gave her so she wouldn’t continue crying.

The “three times T” Popcorn Command, the Sup and the canine wing of the command then went to the hotbed and, with the militia members gathered, the new “passive-aggressive” scheme was explained and practiced, which, as it should be, had in a leading role the aforementioned Command.

Following the old and proven Zapatista rule of “Do not play with the enemy’s rules”, the Sup developed a kind of mixture of rugby, with nineteenth-century dramaturgy, with some Anime, with cinema very much like Hollywood corner with Cannes, with Monet’s impressionism, a pinch of Allan Poe crossed with Conan Doyle, something of Cervantes’ epic, the brevity of Joyce, the perspective of Buñuel, a pinch of Brecht mixed with Beckett, the seasoning of some tacos al pastor, a very rebajada cumbia, Anita Tijoux and Shadia Mansour breaking borders -free Palestine-, and, well, I didn’t take note of everything, but the only thing missing was the ball.

The strategy in question had 3 phases:

The first was that Verónica grabbed a Zapatista doll and headed determinedly towards the opposing goal, she stood in front of the enemy goalkeeper and spoke to her in Cho’ol. The goalkeeper, of course, world not understand anything, but there stood Lupita and Esperanza Zapatista who would translate with signs that the girl was giving her the doll. And Esperanza, as her name indicates, offered to take a photo with the girl and the doll. For the photo, they should tell the goaly to put the ball down, because Verónica wanted her to hug her. At the moment this happened, Esperanza kicked the ball “into the back of the net” and the entire team shouted “Goal!” It was practiced countless times with success. The only thing that could not be achieved was for Verónica not to take the doll from the goalkeeper and run away.

The second variant consisted of the Zapatista goalkeeper receiving the ball, placing it under her sports shirt, as if she were pregnant, and beginning to walk as if pregnant. The entire Zapatista team came to help her and take her to medical services. Of course, since they were in foreign territory, the teammates made a mistake and went to face the enemy goal, where, miraculously, the Zapatista goalkeeper dropped the ball that, barely rolling, went beyond the enemy line and gave birth to a Goal that he forgot from Messi and Cristiano. Meanwhile, the TTT Popcorn Commando surrounded the sister responsible for the board and “exhorted” her to accept the goal achieved “with the sacrifice of the Zapatista comrade and her little ball.”

The third variant implied a risk for the protagonist, since she had to fake fainting. It was practiced only once in the seedbed because the terrain there is gravel (stone and sand), and it was expected that there would be grass in the enemy field. The compañera had to faint in the middle of the field. Subcommander Moisés, alarmed, would run to see his companion and, with him, the entire Zapatista bench would run. All the compañeras cried out, in their respective mother tongues, for medical service. As expected, the enemy would have no medical service, so a stretcher would be prepared in advance. The referee would like to call the paramedics, but SubMoisés would allege practices and customs of the native peoples, so the Zapatistas themselves lift the fainted woman and place her on the stretcher. Confused by the pain and sorrow of seeing their sister fall in combat, the militia members would not succeed in heading to the bench carrying the stretcher, so they would end up reaching the enemy goal. At that moment, the first gods, those who made the world, would do their work and the injured compa would wake up without the need for any male toad, commoner or royalty, to kiss her, and she would find the ball at her feet, just on the goal line and with a kick she would seal the fate. It was to be expected that, animated by the joy of seeing their companion safe, the militiawomen would shout “Goal!” By that time, the Popcorn Commando would already be at the foot of the scoreboard to ensure that life was celebrated.

I don’t really remember the fourth – I know I said there were 3, but weren’t the three musketeers actually 4? -, although it was similar in wit, creativity and mischief to the other three.

According to what the militia women told me upon their return, in the territories they call “Italy” and “Spanish State”, the enemy sisters quickly understood what the matter was about and began to play with the same style. I don’t know whether FIFA could classify it as football but, judging by the photos and videos they showed me, it was a party. Result: there was no winner or loser… and Verónica returned with the doll that, presumably, belonged to the now deceased SupGaleano. No, she didn’t give it back.

“And that was the message for geographies around the world: do not play with your enemy’s rules, create your own rules,” SupGaleano declared to me before his last sigh.

-*-

II.- How many Cyprus can fit in a soccer game?

This was told to me by Subcommander Insurgent Moisés, when he told me details and anecdotes from the so-called “Europe chapter” of the Journey for Life. What I tell below is what I managed to rescue from the narration, full of admiration and respect, of Subcommander Moisés.

“There is a geography called Cyprus. Well, it’s broken, that is, in pieces. There are Cypriots, there are Greek Cypriots and there are Turkish Cypriots and I don’t remember how many more people have the last name Cypriot. The capitalists divided that land, cut it into pieces. And they also cut up their people, their language, their history, their culture. And it turns out that, although it is a small island, all the money wants it and, as they do, they divide it, but each party wants the other’s share. In other words, in the midst of the powerful and their wars, the people remain.

Well, then there is a soccer team in that geography called Cyprus. They have good players and they are professionals. So their job is to play soccer. So they are losing several games and they meet among themselves to analyze and they say that they are losing because the games’ strategy is wrong. They go and tell the owner of the team, that is, the boss, that they are losing because of that, that they already thought of a better strategy and that way they will win more games.

The boss, that is, the owner of the team, looks at them with contempt and tells them: “you win or lose as it suits me. Sometimes it suits me that you lose and that’s how it will continue.»

The players know how to play very well, but they also have a good heart. So, as they say, they rebel. They tell themselves resistance and rebellion, but in their language. And they send the owner of the team, that is, the boss, to hell. Then they make their own soccer team. And they organize themselves and make a stadium. That land is divided, so, in the middle, they say “no man’s land”, they make their stadium there and then they invite anyone who wants to play and practice. The other groups and collectives that fight, support them and are well organized. It doesn’t matter if you are Cypriot, Greek Cypriot, Turkish Cypriot or Cypriot I don’t know what. There is no charge, it is voluntary what each person wants to give. So, as they say, the pay is not what matters. So, from time to time they have their matches and there are no divisions of nationalities, no religions, no flags, there is only football. And it’s like a party.

In other words, as they say, those brothers broke those boundaries that the bosses and owners put in place.

“So they kind of made their Caracol. They have a football Caracol! I told them let’s see when we can have a soccer game there in their land or here in no man’s land,» says Subcommander Insurgent Moisés, spokesperson for the Zapatista communities, chief of the EZLN, and coordinator of the Journey for Life.

-*-

1. Cheers and that the games, like the rides, are not a competition but rather excuses to coexist among different people.

I attest
From the mountains of the Mexican southeast.

The Captain
Mexico, November 2023. 40, 30, 20, 10, 2 years later.

Music: «Somos Sur», for Ana Tijoux and Shadia Mansour
Images of the soccer match between the Ixchel-Ramona team and the enemy Italian sisters taken in the geography they call Rome, Italy, in November 2021. Added to images of mobilization of the Zapatista peoples against the wars in 2022. Tercios Compas . Copyleft November 2023

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

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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

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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.

Con gratitud y compañerismo, celebramos el 40 aniversario de la fundación del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional. Agradecemos a las, los y loas compañer@s por la luz de esperanza que nos brindan y nos han brindado.

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.

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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.

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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.