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Words by Compañera Selena, Listener,ⁱ

Good evening compañeros and compañeras of the Sixth.

Good evening brothers and sisters.

Good evening to everyone in general.

The topic that I will be explaining to you, actually I will read it to you, is the same topic the other compañera presented on, but with more information about the youth, both Zapatistas and non-Zapatistas.

We as Zapatista youth are facing a low intensity war that the bad government and the bad capitalists wage against us. They put ideas into our heads about modern life, like cellphones, clothes, and shoes; they put these bad ideas into our heads through TV, through soap operas, soccer games, and commercials, so that we as youth will be distracted and not think about how to organize our struggle.

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Words of Compañera Lizbeth, Zapatista base of support77

Good evening compañeros and compañeras, brothers and sisters.

We are going to explain a little bit of how we have been living and doing our autonomous work after the 1994 armed uprising.

We as Zapatista youth today, we are no longer familiar with the overseer, with the landowner, with the hacienda boss, much less with El Amate [a prison in Chiapas]; we do not know what it is to go to the official municipal presidents so that they can resolve our problems. Thanks to the EZLN organization, we now have our own authorities in each community, we have our municipal authorities, and our Juntas de Buen Gobierno [Good Government Councils], and they resolve whatever type of problem that might arise for a compañera or compañero, for both Zapatistas and non-Zapatistas.

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Good evening compañeros and compañeras, brothers and sisters.

I’m going to explain a little bit of what compañera Comandanta Rosalinda said.

Just as she explained, it is now my turn to talk about how we become authorities. From 1994 on, we knew that we had rights as women. That was when we woke up. This is how little by little we grew to understand the work of the compañeras.

In the communities, in the regions, we began the practice of organizing ourselves to fight for the good of the community, without having to have an education to do so.

In 1994, we realized that as women, as mothers and fathers, we had the courage to send our husbands, our sons, our daughters to fight, and we knew well that to confront the enemy is not easy and one can come back alive or dead. But we never dwelled on those things. We were clear that the women had the responsibility to raise whomever of our sons and daughters were left. This is when we understood that we thought the same way as the compañeros.

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Good evening compañeros and compañeras, brothers and sisters.

What compañera Comandanta Miriam just explained is all true. We were poorly treated, humiliated, and unappreciated because we never knew that yes, we did have the right to organize, to participate, to do all types of work; this is because no one had given us an explanation of how we could organize to get out of this exploitation.

At that time we were all in the dark, we didn’t know anything. But during the time of clandestinity, there came a day when some compañeras were recruited, and they went on to recruit other compañeras village by village.

Then came the time to name a compañera to be the local authority for each community. They named me as a local authority of my community. That is when I started going to meetings in order to bring more information back to the community. Later on we held meetings with the compañeras in the village to explain to them how the collective work could be organized, and to also to explain to them that its necessary to have compañeras who are insurgents and milicianas.^[i]

(Continuar leyendo…)

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Comandanta Miriam

Good evening compañeros and compañeras.

I also have the chance to talk to you a bit about what the situation was for women prior to 1994.

Women suffered through a very sad situation since the arrival of the conquistadors. They stole our land and took our language, our culture. This is how the domination of caciquismo [local despotism] and landowners came into being alongside a triple exploitation, humiliation, discrimination, marginalization, mistreatment, and inequality.

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Mujeres de pie

Por: Eugenia Gutiérrez. Colectivo Radio Zapatista.
San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas.
7 de mayo de 2015.

Primera parte

Las incansables. Las que nos levantan. Las que transforman cada burla y cada golpe en desafío. Sobre el templete del auditorio de Oventik hace unos días, una mujer de pie nos observa. Es maestra de ceremonias, sostiene su cuadernito de apuntes del programa como si sostuviera a una criatura, no nos dice su nombre, nos mira en silencio durante horas.

En el templete del auditorio de la Unitierra, anoche, tres generaciones de mujeres nos enseñan y nos cuidan. El privilegio de escucharlas presentando ponencia en una universidad como no hay otra. Nada de víctimas que se autocompadecen. Nada de venganzas. Ni pobrecitas de nosotras ni pobres de ustedes.

De entre las luchas feministas en distintas partes del mundo, seis intervenciones abordan la problemática actual provocada por un patriarcado milenario y terco que ha encontrado en el capitalismo su camino mejor pavimentado.

Desde el Kurdistán, una compañera viene a entregar a las zapatistas una bandera para unificar dos luchas reales, completamente radicales. Un saludo para el maestro zapatista Galeano porque “él es nuestro maestro. Lo seguimos”. Un mensaje de Abdulla Öcalan, fundador del Partido de los Trabajadores del Kurdistán (PKK), detenido en 1998, único preso en la isla turca de Imaril. Tanto le temen que lo vigilan mil soldados. Apoyándose en una lucha de décadas, Havin Güneser del Movimiento de Liberación Kurdo nos explica lo fundamental que ha sido la lucha de las mujeres para su resistencia mientras pone el dedo en la llaga: “La esclavitud de las mujeres constituye el origen de todas las formas de esclavitud” y, por tanto, de todos los problemas sociales. Si somos “la primera colonia”, para entender el origen del capitalismo hay que escudriñar el origen del patriarcado. Así de complicado, así de sencillo.

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THE MOTHERS OF THE 43 STUDENTS OF AYOTZINAPA BROKE DOWN BORDERS ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

On March 8^th, 2015, International Women’s Day, the mothers of the 43 disappeared students of Ayotzinapa broke down borders by sending a powerful video-message to the global gathering “Women’s Struggles Transform the World!” held in New York and convoked by Movement for Justice in El Barrio.

The worldwide struggle of the 43 disappeared of Ayotzinapa has been headed by the mothers of the students. These amazing mothers have touched the hearts and motivated countless people from throughout the world to join with them. A living testament that this “other world” we desire is currently being inspired and created, from the bottom-up, by women. The mothers of the 43 chose to break down borders with this heartfelt video-message which is yet another reminder of their contribution to movements everywhere.

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.

Ciudad de México, 8 de marzo de 2015.
Eugenia Gutiérrez, colectivo Radio Zapatista.

Dios nunca sonríe. Impera en oriente y occidente, en el norte y en el sur, mientras observa distante a sus criaturas destructoras. Desde hace milenios, la institucionalidad de las tres religiones monoteístas dominantes lo representa o lo piensa como un hombre maduro, blanco, poderoso y sano. Nadie le conoce una novia ni un amigo. Jamás lo han visto alimentando a un bebé ni disfrutando de un tranquilo día de campo. Si la humanidad fue creada “a su imagen y semejanza” debió ocurrir una grave confusión en el acto, o bien, un severo error de producción, pues nadie lo ha escuchado cantar ni se le ha visto por ahí llorando de amor, soñando, trabajando, padeciendo alguna discapacidad ni aprendiendo a bailar. De hecho, el noventa por ciento de sus criaturas no se le asemejan.
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