Words of the General Command of the EZLN in the name of the Zapatista women, men, children and elders at the opening of the Gathering “The Zapatistas and ConSciences for Humanity”

Listen to the audio: (Descarga aquí)  

Good morning.

Compañeras, compañeros of Mexico and of the world:

Brothers and sisters of Mexico and of the world:

First and foremost, in the name of the compañeras and compañeros who are Bases of Support of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation, we thank all of the compañer@s of CIDECI who once again have provided us with these spaces so that we, Zapatista originary peoples and scientists, can gather here as a way to begin to look and walk toward what must be done in this world we live in, which capitalism is destroying.

We also thank the compañeros who have worked on registration and coordination for this event.

We also thank the compañer@s from the transport support team.

We thank you in advance, compañeras and compañeros of the various teams and collectives for the shitload of work that you have done to make this gathering happen. Many thanks.

For we as Zapatista men and women, today begins our long walk in search of others with whom we think share the great responsibility to defend and save the world we live in – with the art of artists, the science of scientists, and the originary peoples alongside those below from across the entire world.

A handful of some so-called “neoliberal capitalists” have decided to savagely destroy everything, caring nothing at all for this house that we live in.

This makes us Zapatistas think and ask ourselves:

Where are we poor people of the world going to live, because they, the rich, might just go and live on another planet?

What should we do now, as we see that they are destroying our house?

Or what happens if they take us to another planet to be their slaves?

After turning this over many times in our heads, we conclude that:

Below there are women and men who study science, who study scientifically, who do good science. But the wicked capitalists come along and use this science to do harm to the very people who discovered that science. What kind of harm?

They use science to make the rich richer.

The rich use it as they choose, for a destiny other than that for which it was created. They use it to kill and destroy.

Now it is getting worse for them up there, and that will be used even more harshly against us living beings and our mother earth.

That is how all of these bad things began and how they continue, bringing us to a very dire point today.

This is how things happened, and in the same way they use the artists who make art – capitalism uses everything to the detriment of society and for the good of capitalism. What was natural, nature and those who live within it, which is to say the originary peoples, will be destroyed along with mother nature.

Therefore, we believe, think, and imagine.

We can organize ourselves, work, struggle, and defend who we are – the foundation of this world – so that this world, the house in which we live, can’t be disappeared by the capitalists. Now is the time, brothers and sisters, compañer@s, compañeroas; no one is going to bring us salvation. It is up to us.

Begin to dream and you will see that we can only fight capitalism with good scientific science, the art of the artist, and the guardians of mother nature together with those below from across the world. This is our responsibility.

I don’t mean to say that we are the only ones who should struggle, not at all. But when we look around at how things are, we realize that all of the useful things that we have in our houses are a matter of science, in terms of where they came from, and all of the figures and figurines in our houses and rooms are the art of artists, and all of the materials for these things come from mother nature, where the originary peoples live.

It is as if we are the “seeds” of all of this.

Let’s put it even more clearly.

Who figured out how to make today’s most modern cellphone? It’s the same for thousands of other products – they are used to benefit the rich, and not for the use science intended, nor for the people.

Who figured out how to make the images that are held within cellphones which are now manipulated on any whim?

Where did the materials that cellphones are made of come from? The same question goes for thousands of other goods.

Capitalism has converted science into something used for harm: something to feed its massive accumulation of wealth; something to manipulate at its every whim. It takes no responsibility for the destruction it has wrought with these actions.

We know what will happen.

One more point of clarity.

We are the lifeblood of the rich; we are the flesh and bone that make their lives possible, and the rest of the organs (in this body) are made up of the consumers; meanwhile, they live to do us harm in this capitalist system.

The origin of the evil the capitalist system wreaks on us is revealed.

Our survival, and the other construction of a new world, is in our hands.

Today we are here not to tell each other what to do, but to understand what our function is to capitalism in this world, and to see if what capitalism has us doing is any good for this world that we live in, human and living beings.

And if we discover that it is entirely bad, that the use capitalism makes of our sciences is harmful, then we have to take responsibility and decide what to do.

Before I finish compañeras and compañeros, sisters and brothers, today December 26, we do not forget that there are lives missing from our midst, the life of the 46 missing young people from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero.

Together with their families and friends who continue to search for them and who do not give up or sell out, we Zapatista men and women also demand truth and justice. To these mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers of the missing, we give our largest collective embrace.

So, welcome to this gathering, to this long walk of the other sciences during which there is no rest, because rest would mean that the other, new world is already built, and until it is built there will be no rest.

May your wisdom, scientists, encounter and embrace our desire to learn and to know about the worlds.

Many thanks.

From CIDECI-Unitierra, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas.

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.

Mexico, December 26, 2016

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.

CompARTiendo Arte Zapatista
Obras colectivas e individuales de zapatistas de los cinco caracoles

La Galería
Andador del Arco del Carmen
Miguel Hidalgo #3
San Cristóbal de Las Casas

Subes las escaleras y de repente. De repente… Los puntos suspensivos los llena cada uno, al ritmo de su corazón y de su pensamiento. Pero algo es cierto: imposible no conmoverse. Conmoverse primero por la belleza, porque no hay corazón que resista tanta belleza. Pero conmoverse también porque en esa belleza, en esas pinturas, en esos bordados, en ese mundo de expresión está la lucha, la perseverancia, el oficio incansable de la esperanza.

A muchos quilómetros de distancia, en alguna ciudad de Brasil, en la casa de un artista que es un verdadero poeta del color, se discutía justo anoche la esperanza, que proviene del verbo “esperanzar”, y no de “esperar”. O sea que la esperanza es movimiento, es acción, es lucha, es el oficio minucioso y porfiado de construir otro mundo posible.

Eso mero es lo que dice el Sup Galeano en su misiva a Juan Villoro cuando escribe que son las artes, y no la política, las que “cavan en lo más profundo del ser humano y rescatan su esencia. Como si el mundo siguiera siendo el mismo, pero con ellas y por ellas pudiéramos encontrar la posibilidad humana entre tantos engranajes, tuercas y resortes rechinando con mal humor. A diferencia de la política, el arte entonces no trata de reajustar o arreglar la máquina. Hace, en cambio, algo más subversivo e inquietante: muestra la posibilidad de otro mundo. […] Como si en lugar de re-etiquetar la máquina, embelleciéndola o afinándola, el arte y la ciencia plantaran, sobre la cromada superficie del sistema, un letrero lacónico y definitorio: ‘CADUCO’, ‘Tiempo Transcurrido’, ‘para continuar viviendo deposite otro mundo’”.

Al tiempo en que comienza el encuentro “L@s zapatistas y las ConCIENCIAS por la Humanidad” en San Cristóbal de Las Casas, se presenta también la exposición de las obras zapatistas exhibidas en el encuentro “CompARTE por la Humanidad” el pasado julio y agosto, en La Galería, en el andador del Arco del Carmen, Miguel Hidalgo 3. Para quienes no pudieron asistir al CompARTE, la exposición “CompARTiendo Arte Zapatista – Obras colectivas e individuales de zapatistas de los cinco caracoles” es imperdible.

CIDECI-Unitierra. San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.

From December 26, 2014, through January 4, 2017.

December 26

10:00 – 11:00. Inauguration. Words of Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés on behalf of the Zapatista women, men, children, and elders.

General Sessions. Participation by:

Biologist Adriana Raquel Aguilar Melo: “The Academy May Be Exclusionary, But Can Science Be A Common Good?”

Dr. Marco Antonio Sánchez Ramos: “Sisyphus and Science”

Dr. Tonatiuh Matos Chassin: “A Fundamental Law for the Progress of a Nation”

Physicist Eduardo Vizcaya Xilotl: “(Meta)Sciences, Utopias and Dystopias”

Professors Luis Malaret and Diane Rocheleau: “Ecology From Below”

Dr. Iván Alejandro Velasco-Dávalos: “Who Does Science Serve? A Collective Vision Regarding the Importance of the Joint Popularization of the Arts and the Sciences”

Alchemist SupGaleano: “Some Questions for the Sciences”

December 27

(Continuar leyendo…)

DESPITE AGGRESSIONS, THE CONSULTATION CONTINUES
JOINT COMMUNIQUE BY THE NATIONAL INDIGENOUS CONGRESS AND THE ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION.

December 2, 2016.

TO THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO:
TO THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD:
TO THE FREE MEDIA:

The steps taken by our peoples are great, steps wise when taken in collectivity, and the National Indigenous Congress turns with attentive ears to listen to each other, to the thoughts of we who are the word and the agreements of the 5th CNI. We continue in permanent assembly, traveling to all corners of our country, Mexico.

Our permanent assembly arises from and convenes among the peoples, nations, and tribes of all the languages spoken by the National Indigenous Congress; in large and small assemblies; in meetings of communal councils, in deep reflections by dispersed families; in regional forums and ceremonial spaces. In our collective words, we continue to conclude that it is the time of our peoples, time for the earth to tremble at its core.

The fears of the powerful, the extractive companies, the military, and the narcoparamilitaries are so great that our consultation is being attacked and harassed in the places where our peoples are meeting to discuss and decide the steps to take as the CNI. For that reason, we denounce the following:

(Continuar leyendo…)

CONVOCATION FOR THE SECOND PHASE OF THE FIFTH NATIONAL INDIGENOUS CONGRESS

Given that:

1. During the first phase of the Fifth National Indigenous Congress, we analyzed and discussed in depth the different faces of the capitalist war on our peoples. We agreed that it is urgent to halt the displacement, destruction, disrespect, oblivion, and death to which our peoples are subjected and which seek to put an end to our individual and collective resistances and leave our homeland in the hands of the capitalists that govern this country and this world.

2. It is urgent to struggle, to take serious steps and go on the offensive alongside the peoples of the countryside and the city, indigenous and nonindigenous, to construct a new nation from below.

3. We agreed to remain in permanent assembly while carrying out a consultation in all of our geographies on the resolutions reached October 9-14, 2016, with respect to the formation of an Indigenous Governing Council, to be represented by an indigenous woman who is a CNI delegate who will run for the Mexican presidency in the electoral process of 2018.

WE CONVOKE THE SECOND PHASE OF THE FIFTH NATIONAL INDIGENOUS CONGRESS:

To be held December 29, 30, and 31, 2016, and January 1, 2017, in the Zapatista Caracol of Oventik. This Congress will have decisive capacity with regard to the agreements proposed in the first phase of the Fifth National Indigenous Congress as well as with regard to any agreements reached during this second phase. The Congress will be carried out according to the following schedule:

December 29:

a) Arrival and registration of CNI commissions.
b) Opening ceremony.

December 30: Closed plenary session to discuss:

a) The installation of the second phase of the Fifth National Indigenous Congress.
b) The report on the results of the internal consultation by the commission named for this purpose.
c) Evaluation of the results of the internal consultation in work groups.
d) Determination of the paths the CNI will take in the face of capitalist displacement, repression, disrespect, and exploitation, and the strengthening of our resistances and rebellions.
e) The steps to be taken toward the constitution of an Indigenous Governing Council for Mexico.

December 31: The work group discussions continue.

January 1: Plenary Session in the Zapatista Caracol of Oventik.

With regard to the above, and based on the agreements, reflections, and results that come out of the work around the internal consultation that is being carried out in each of the geographies of our peoples, we ask the peoples, nations, and tribes who make up the National Indigenous Congress to name delegates who will discuss and agree upon the steps to take. These delegates should register at the official email address: catedratatajuan@gmail.com.

In addition, as agreed during the general meeting of the Provisional Coordinating Commission held November 26, 2011, at the UNIOS facilities in Mexico City, we ask that the results of the consultation—as acts, minutes, pronunciations, or other forms that reflect the consensuses reached according to the methods of each people, nation, or tribe—be submitted by December 15 at the latest to the email address: consultacni@gmail.com.

The points put forward in this convocation will be discussed in closed sessions December 30 and 31, 2016, in which EXCLUSIVELY CNI delegates may participate. Compañer@s of the National and International Sixth as well as accredited media may participate in the January 1, 2017 plenary, or in any moment that the assembly deems appropriate.

Members of the National and International Sixth, special invitees of the CNI, as well as media who want to participate as observers in the open sessions of the second phase of the Fifth CNI should register beforehand at the email address: cni20aniversario@ezln.org.mx.

Attentively,

November 26, 2016

For the Full Reconstitution of Our Peoples
Never Again a Mexico Without Us

National Indigenous Congress
Zapatista Army for National Liberation

A STORY TO TRY TO UNDERSTAND

November 17, 2016.

To the national and international Sixth:
To those who sympathize with and support the struggle of originary peoples:
To those who are anticapitalists:

Compañeras, compañeros, compañeroas:
Brothers and sisters:

We wrote this extensive text together, Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, spokesperson and current head of the EZLN, and I, consulting on certain details with some of the Comandantas and Comandantes of the Zapatista delegation that attended the first phase of the Fifth Congress of the National Indigenous Congress.

Although now, as on other occasions, the task of actually writing it down falls to me, it is Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés who reads, adds or subtracts, approves or rejects not just this text, but all those published as authentic writings by the EZLN. Not infrequently through these writings, I will use the first person singular pronoun. The reason for this will be understood later on. Although the primary audience of the following lines is the Sixth, we have decided to extend it to those who, without being with us or one of us, have identical concerns and similar work. Here goes:

-*-

…NEITHER OUR NIGHTMARES

Some years ago, the creativity and ingenuity of some collective of the Sixth produced a phrase which, with the passage of time, was attributed to Zapatismo. As you know, we are against copyright, but we don’t usually claim words or actions that are not ours. However, although not of our authorship, the statement does in part reflect our feelings as Zapatistas.

(Continuar leyendo…)

Read in Tzeltal here.

It Is not a Single Person’s Decision

November 2016

For the [l@s] racists:

Well, we’ve been reading and listening to everything you’ve been saying and writing.

We’ve seen all of your mockery, your scorn, the racism that you can no longer hide.

I believe that the compañeros and especially the compañeras of the National Indigenous Congress [CNI] are also reading and listening to what you say.

It’s clear that the CNI was right about what they thought and what they told us, that there is a lot of racism in society.

I imagine you amuse and applaud each other over what a good joke you made with your leftist mockery about the EZLN’s “candigata.”[i]

You celebrate your machismo making fun of indigenous women.

You say that we ‘fucking Indians’ let ourselves be manipulated, are unable to think for ourselves, and go like sheep wherever the shepherd points.

But I think when you say this you are actually looking in the mirror.

(Continuar leyendo…)

Lee en español aquí.

M´a tuluk skop anzt, winik.

Ú´j noviembre chebj mil wuaklajuneb javilal.

Yu´un lajbanwuanejetic wuinik´etik antzetik:

Tenix ayotik taj kopinel te bin yaka´tzivayik, yakal chambeltik spisil te binkawualik y sok te vin kajtzivayik.

Spisil te ja lavanwuanejik, ja bolilik, ja chopolil tej max´uix jak´unik snakaltayel.

Jixniwuan tej joetactikon taj pisilik de anztetik, wuiniquetik ta Congreso Nacional. Indígena yakalwuan taj yilbelik skopinbelik tej vin yakal jaá ztibabelik y xchambelik tej ja kópic.

Taj meleil loók te vitil laj yalik y laj yalbotikon tej ay bayal chopol´otanil ta lumilal.

K´ax vayal lamulanik, y laj pak´jakabik jaátex yuún kax lok ja´kunik loilkop te la pasik tekawualik yu´un ayatex tajkexan te jaátex y yax labanwuanjatex sok tej “canditaga”, te yas´can ya yal skaceselwuelil yuún ezln.

Laá jpasveyik kinalul bitíl tatilatex yuún slabanel te anztetik te jotikon indigenaotikon.

Yatoj ka kutikon indios tej yakikiltaybaticon taj pikel y que mayuk bin yajnaticon te joóticon y te yax botíncon bitil chamvalam banti ya yal te canan chij.

Yuúnwuan max´xawuilabaik taj jun espejo kalal vinkawualik

Jixchniwuan lokatex vitiltatil chopolatex mayuk jaákexlalik.

(Continuar leyendo…)

Joint Communique from the CNI and the EZLN in Solidarity with the Indigenous Community of Santa María Ostula, Michoacán

November 4, 2016

To the Nahua community of Santa María Ostula, Michoacán:
To the peoples of the world:
To national and international civil society:
To the independent media:

The peoples, nations, and tribes who make up the National Indigenous Congress and the Zapatista Army for National Liberation manifest our profound condemnation of the actions carried out in unison by the bad governments and criminal groups against the Nahua indigenous community of Santa María Ostula, municipality of Aquila, Michoacán, in an attempt to crush their dignified and historic struggle.

These governments were not only complicit in the attack against Cemeí Verdía on May 25, 2015, but in fact freed those directly responsible, Juan Hernández Ramírez (then municipal president of Aquila) and José Antioco Calvillo. They [the government] imprisoned Cemeí Verdía on false charges and murdered the young boy Hidelberto Reyes García.

The bad governments now intend to arrest commander Germán Ramírez, fabricating criminal charges against those who struggle to defend the land and their families. At the same time, we see the regrouping of members of the Knights Templar cartel who are already reorganized and heavily armed in the eastern part of the municipality of Aquila.

(Continuar leyendo…)