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The Arts and the Sciences in the history of (neo) Zapatista

Words of Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano

December 28, 2016.

Last night I spoke to you about the interplanetary upheaval that had given rise to the question “Why is this flower this color? Why does it have this shape? Why does it have this scent?”

Ok, maybe I was exaggerating with the claim of “interplanetary.” I should have said the upheaval created by the question that young Rosita had put to Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés in the micro-cosmos of Zapatismo had provoked.

Although I believe it is obvious, it doesn’t hurt to mention that the response that SubMoy gave to the young Zapatista woman was the same one that, I’m not sure, but probably, I’m imagining, has fueled the advance of science since its very beginning: “I don’t know.”

Now I think that, certainly, the young woman knew what his response would be, but she also hoped that SubMoy would understand that, within the flower, there was a larger question.

We know now, because we are here in this meeting, that SubMoy knew that the response, “I don’t know” was not only insufficient, but also useless if it did not lead to other questions.

In a few minutes he is going to talk to you about what, as it were, is the context of the question…and about his response.

I am meant to speak to you briefly about the prehistory of this question and this response.

The arts and sciences prior to the uprising, within the eezeelen, had a very small universe and a brief history. Both the sciences and the arts had a purpose, a direction, and an imposed reason: war.

First in the guerilla encampments, then in the barracks, and later in the communities, the arts were limited to music, poetry, and a little bit of drawing and painting, all with exclusively revolutionary messages. Of course, it was not unusual that soon songs of love and broken hearts, corridos, rancheras and even the occasional Juan Gabriel ballad would appear, but that was only clandestinely within our clandestinity.

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Texto: Raúl Romero (@cancerbero_mx), Amiel Moreno y Diego Delezé
Fotografía: Regina López y Elis Monroy

El encuentro entre zapatistas y científic@s de diferentes partes del mundo ha resultado sumamente novedoso e interesante. Conforme el encuentro avanza, alumn@s, maestr@s, escuchas y demás asistentes hemos ido aprendiendo sobre muchas cosas: el sol, la energía, los transgénicos, la agroecología, la astronomía, la biotecnología y un largo etcétera.

En el tercer día del encuentro se realizaron dos sesiones generales, un taller y seis pláticas de divulgación. Por la mañana, en la primer sesión general, participaron el Maestro en Ciencias Elfego Ruiz Gutiérrez, el Dr. Carlos Román Zuñiga y el Dr. Igor Valencia Sánchez.

En su participación, Ruiz Gutiérrez nos habló sobre «El quehacer científico para la vida cotidiana» y dijo que dos de los problemas más constantes en las sociedades actuales son: 1) la cada vez mayor aceptación y difusión de las pseudociencias y 2) la extrapolación de algunos resultados científicos. También compartió que su visión de la ciencia apostaba por crear una sociedad justa y con una distribución equitativa de la riqueza.

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“The flower is to blame”

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December 27, 2016

“Earlier this year, on February 30, 2016, the Swedish electronic science magazine, River’s Scientist Research Institute, published a study that may revolutionize science and its social applications.

A group of scientists, led by Swedish doctors Stod Sverderg, Kurt Wallander, and Stellan Skarsgard, presented a complex, multidisciplinary analysis that arrived at the following provocative conclusion: There exists a direct correlation between the increase in quantity and quality of feminist movements, and the decrease in birth rates.

Combining statistical methods, embryology, molecular biology, genetics, and analytical behavior, the scientists concluded that the rise in the diversity of feminism’s belligerence provokes libido inhibitors in males, thus reduces the rate of frequency of sexual reproduction.

But there’s more. Laboratory analyses established that male spermatozoa exposed to feminist activism are weaker than unexposed spermatozoa. Known as astebizisoermia, or “lazy spermatozoa” syndrome, it is more prevalent in male populations where feminism occupies a protagonist role in social organization. According to the published article, Dr. Everet Bacstrom of the Rainn Wilson Institute, headquartered in London, tested the investigation’s theory with a sample of European, WASP, middle class males and reached the same conclusion.

In an interview with the publication, European feminist activists Chloë Sevigny and Sarah Linden said that the study was merely a dirty example of “patriarchal scientism.”

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Texto: Raúl Romero @cancerbero_mx
Fotografía: Dante Saucedo y Elis Monroy

Durante el segundo día del encuentro convocado por el EZLN, se llevaron a cabo conferencias, talleres y pláticas de divulgación científica en las que zapatistas, integrantes de pueblos originarios y miembros de la sociedad civil escucharon y cuestionaron a científic@s de distintos países.

Por la mañana, pasadas las 10 horas, el día arranco con una serie de conferencias que inauguro el físico Alejo Stark, quien mostró, a través de la comparación entre la energía obscura y las teorías del fin de la historia, como la producción del conocimiento científico está relacionada con el sistema social dominante, en la era actual con el capitalismo.

Por su parte, la bióloga Tatiana Fiordelisio narró cómo las ciencias han sido utilizadas como armas de guerra, de genocidio y de ecocidio. Para ejemplificar esta afirmación, recurrió a la historia del agente naranja –utilizado durante la guerra en Vietnam– y a la utilización de energías fósiles y sus repercusiones en el planeta tierra. Fiordelisio puso énfasis en la relación entre ciencia y desarrollo social y señaló que «la ciencia es la historia y viceversa». La bióloga culminó su participación llamando a impulsar una otra ciencia, una ciencia zapatista, comprometida con la humanidad y con la construcción de un mundo mejor.

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Por Alejandro Reyes
Colectivo Radio Zapatista

La larga fila de bases zapatistas serpentea rodeando el auditorio para entrar del lado opuesto donde se aglomeran cientos de personas de muchos rincones del mundo. La sección delantera del auditorio está reservada para los zapatistas, unas 200 bases de apoyo, las mujeres enfrente, los hombres atrás, todas y todos con cuaderno en mano. Son estudiantes. Pero estudiantes sui generis. Estudiantes “videntes” y “escuchas”, encargadxs de escuchar, observar y llevar la palabra a las comunidades. Pero también encargadxs de reflexionar, cuestionar, debatir. Desde hace meses se preparan, aunque en realidad se puede decir que son años, siglos quizás.

Estamos en el encuentro L@s Zapatistas y las ConCiencias por la Humanidad, y hasta el sureste mexicano llegaron cientos de oyentes de muchas partes de México y del mundo y decenas de científicos, quienes en los próximos días compartirán sus saberes con lxs alumnxs zapatistas e intentarán responder sus preguntas.

Pero ¿qué tiene que ver un movimiento rebelde indígena y esas ciencias, que van de la biología a la astrofísica? ¿Cómo caben las ciencias “duras” en un lugar que más tendría que ver con el realismo mágico que con la “objetividad” científica, donde existen los gato-perros, donde una gallina es capaz de convertirse en pingüino, donde un subcomandante puede ser el escudero de un escarabajo, donde los muertos resucitan y botargas decretan su propia muerte, donde se es soldado para que ya no haya soldados, donde se manda obedeciendo, donde pescados aparecen en ríos secos tras una breve lluvia, donde se inventan periscopios invertidos para indagar la concretud de las raíces y donde una niña que sabe que Dios es redondo no cesa en su obstinado afán de abrir grietas en un muro a patadas?

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A Few First Questions for the Sciences and their ConSciences

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Em português aqui.

December 26, 2016

Scientists [Científicas and Científicos]:
Compas of the Sixth:
Observers and Listeners who are present here and those who are at a distance:

Good morning, afternoon, night, and, as always, the dark hours before dawn:

My name is SupGaleano. As I am only a little over two and a half years old, my version of what used to be called a “curriculum vitae” and now is called a “user profile” is quite brief. In addition to being an insurgente and a Zapatista, I have various other professions. One of them, for example, is to make those who consider themselves fine upstanding citizens uncomfortable, and to awake the basest instincts of those who do not. I do this by showing my clearly seductive and voluptuous figure, which I have achieved, through much effort, via a rigorous diet of greasy meals along with supplementary junk food at my discretion.

I am also, much to my own dismay and that of many readers, the unwilling scribe for the whims of a particular being—mythological for people over 12 years of age and of obvious existential importance for any person passionate about science and any child [niño, niña, or niñoa] who doesn’t care about calendars except to play with. I am referring, of course, to that being whose mere existence lays social and biological Darwinism to rest and marks the emergence of a new epistemic paradigm: the cat-dog. Perhaps, when this entity abandons the prison of the word, world history will be marked and its calendar redefined with “a before and after the cat-dog.”

(The Sup takes out two figurines of the Cat-Dog, carved out of wood and painted by insurgentes).

Another of my professions, at times and on the orders of my bosses, is to feed the paranoid conspiracy theories against the always “suffering,” “selfless,” and well-behaved institutional left that, for lack of real arguments and proposals, resorts to the role of eternal victim in the hopes that pity will translate into votes and for whom fanaticism substitutes for reason and even a minimum of decency.

(Continuar leyendo…)

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”

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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 Mexican Spanish. 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 Mexican Spanish. 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

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