encuentros
300, Part II: A Continent as a Backyard, a Country as a Cemetery, Pensamiento Único as a Government Program, and a Small, Very Small, Ever So Small Rebellion.
300.
Part II:
A Continent as a Backyard, a Country as a Cemetery, Pensamiento Únicoi as a Government Program, and a Small, Very Small, Ever So Small Rebellion.
From our analysis of the world we move to the level of the continent.
If we look above…
We see the examples of Ecuador, Brazil and Argentina, where supposedly progressive governments have not only been removed from power but prosecuted, and the governments that have taken their place are ones that have been trained as good overseers—obedient to capital, that is—ready to take on a realignment of the world plantation (though, to be fair, even in their cynicism they’re still pretty clumsy). Take Temer in Brazil, Macri in Argentina, and that guy in Ecuador who was supposed to be good because he was chosen by the now-persecuted Correa (a man of the “citizen’s revolution”, “a leftist” according to the progressive intelligentsia who backed him) but who, it turns out, is actually on the right: Lenin Moreno (yeah, paradoxically his name is Lenin).
Under the watchful eye of the State that has become the policeman of the region—Colombia—threats are issued, destabilization efforts are undertaken and plans are made for provocations that would justify “peace force” invasions. In all of South America, we see a return to the brutal times of the Colonies, now characterized by a “new” extractivism—really just the same ancestral plunder of natural resources, categorized as “raw materials”—but endorsed and promoted among the progressive governments of the region as “Left extractivism”. This is supposed to be something like a Leftist capitalism or a capitalist Left, or who knows what it’s supposed to be because it destroys and dispossesses just the same, only it’s for a “good cause” (??). Any criticism or movement that opposes the destruction of the originary peoples’ territories is written off as having been “promoted by Empire” or “backed by the right-wing”, among other equivalents to being “a conspiracy by the mafia of Power.” In sum, the “backyard” of Capital extends across the continent all the way to Cape Horn.
But if we look below…
We see resistances and rebellions, first and foremost among the originary peoples. It would be unfair to try to name them all since there’s always a risk of leaving some out, but their identities are clear in their struggles. There where the machine encounters resistance to its predatory advance, rebellion dresses in colors so old they’re new again and speaks “strange” languages. Displacement, also disguised as the leasing of lands, tries to impose its commodity logic on those who refer to the Earth as “Mother.” These resistances are accompanied by groups, collectives, and organizations which, while perhaps not themselves composed of originary peoples, share the same effort and the same destiny, that is to say, the same heart. That is why they suffer insults, persecution, imprisonment and, not infrequently, death.
(Español) Artes plásticas en el CompArte 2018
Compartimos aquí el registro fotográfico de las artes plásticas presentadas en el CompArte 2018, Caracol de Morelia, del 6 al 9 de agosto de 2018.
El primer día del Festival CompArte por la Humanidad 2018, en el caracol de Morelia, zona tzoj choj del territorio rebelde, lxs zapatistas salvaron al mundo con una inyección. Y así, entre las risas que la actuación de las y los artistas zapatistas provocó, surgió entre nosotrxs la pregunta: ¿Qué poción, qué fórmula, qué elementos curativos contendría la sustancia verde color de esperanza que llenó la gran jeringa zapatista? Y más: ¿Cuál fue la enfermedad que el análisis del gran colectivo de salud autónoma ha venido diagnosticando tras años (¿décadas? ¿siglos?) de pacientes estudios?
Desde hace ya tiempo el zapatismo viene anunciando lo que en su momento llamó la tormenta y que ahora (ahora que la tormenta está aquí) entendemos como el colapso, el apocalipsis, la enfermedad terminal del sistema. En la plenaria del encuentro de redes de apoyo al CIG el 5 de agosto, la Comandancia General del EZLN, en voz del Subcomandante Galeano, enumeró los principales ejes de dicha enfermedad terminal: la crisis ambiental, que a todas vistas nos está conduciendo a un colapso a nivel planetario; las migraciones de poblaciones que para el sistema son descartables, y que buscan alguna forma para sobrevivir; y el agotamiento de los recursos. Ante esto, lo que se observa es un repliegue antiglobalización conducido por la derecha mundial, por medio del cual el centro intenta crear islas (protegidas por muros físicos y virtuales) donde salvaguardarse de dicho colapso planetario. Para tal, el Estado se convierte en un estorbo cuya única utilidad es garantizar la seguridad para el capital, por medio sobre todo, aunque no exclusivamente, de la violencia.
