Only 500 years later
Words of the Zapatista Peoples

August 13, 2021.

Sisters, brothers, hermanoas:

Compañeros, compañeras, compañeroas:

The Zapatista communities speak through our voices.

First, we would like to express our thanks.

Thank you for having invited us.

Thank you for having welcomed us.

Thank you for having housed us.

Thank you for having fed us.

Thank you for having taken care of us.

But above all, we’d like to express our gratitude for the fact that despite differences and obstacles you have all agreed to what we’re doing today. Perhaps it seems small to you, but for us Zapatista communities it is huge.

-*-

We are Zapatistas of Mayan descent.

We are from a geography called Mexico, and we crossed the ocean to share these words with you, be with you, listen to you, and to learn from you.

We are from Mexico and in and with you we find love, care, and respect.

The Mexican state and their administrations don’t recognize us as citizens of this geography. We are strangers, foreigners, undesirable and unwelcome in the same lands that were farmed by our ancestors.

For the Mexican state we are “extemporaneous.” That’s what it says on the birth certificates that we managed to obtain after we made many trips and incurred many expenses on visits to the offices of the bad government. And we did all that to be able to come to where you are.

But we didn’t come all this way to complain or even to denounce the bad government we have to put up with.

We only share this because it is this same bad government which has demanded that the Spanish State apologize for what happened 500 years ago.

You should understand that in addition to being shameless, the bad government of Mexico is also ignorant of history, twisting and adapting it to its liking.

So let’s leave aside the bad governments that each of us have to put up with in our geographies.

They are just overseers, obedient employees of a greater criminal.

-*-

Those of us who make up the Zapatista Maritime Squadron, known as the 421st Squadron, are here in front of you today, but we are just the first wave of a much larger group. There will be up to 501 delegates. There are 501 of us just to show the bad governments that we are ahead of them: while they simulate a false celebration of 500 years, we [nosotros, nosotras, nosotroas] are already heading towards what’s next: life.

In the year 501, we will have explored the corners of this rebellious land.

(Continuar leyendo…)

Zapatista Sixth Commission
Mexico

July 31, 2021.

To the victims and families of victims in Mexico:
To the organizations, groups, collectives and individuals who support the victims:
We present the first results we have received from the Popular Referendum:

1. As of 13:00hrs on July 31, 2021, the twelve Zapatista caracoles and their respective Good Government Councils have received the official decisions of 756 small towns, villages, communities and rancherías [rural farming communities] where the following Mayan languages are spoken: Zoque, Tojolabal, Mam, Tzeltal, Tzotzil and Ch’ol. The decisions come from Zapatistas, CNI communities and partidista [political party-affiliated] communities which came together in “extemporaneous” community assemblies, which is to say that they do not have an official, legal existence.

2. The 756 originary communities have said “YES” in response to the question of whether they agree that whatever is necessary should be done to respect the rights of the victims and their families to truth and justice.

3. What we have noticed up to now is that in many areas, the INE [National Electoral Institute] did not translate the referendum into Mayan languages. The INE did not explain what the referendum is about and in some places it simply dropped off ballot boxes without explaining to the townspeople what they are.

4. The Zapatista communities did the work of explaining the importance of participating in the referendum and what the referendum is about. They did this in both partidista and CNI communities, and they did this in the communities’ mother tongues.

To our surprise, some partidistas communities where there are no Zapatistas held and continue to hold assemblies, and they have sent and continue to send their results to the Good Government Councils.

The partidista communities have thanked the Good Government Councils for explaining the referendum, and have said they will go to the polls tomorrow and will send us the count of how many people from their communities participated in the referendum with their official ID cards.

The gap created by the absence of representatives of the Mexican government and its institutions is being filled by “extemporaneous” individuals who took it upon themselves to translate the referendum into their originary languages and to explain what the referendum is about and its importance.

Not only did no one from the INE show up to explain anything: no one in any government capacity deigned to even try to go to any community (even though the government is supposedly the interested party in the referendum because their overseer ordered it).

The only thing the government officials have done is threaten people by saying that if they don’t go “vote” in the referendum, then their government support programs will be “cut.” They were sent to say: “If you don’t want to lose your cash handouts, go and put down ‘yes.’”

In addition, the government is lying because when it tells people to just go and vote “yes,” it says that the referendum is about whether to take the former presidents to trial.

Instead of explaining things to the people, they resort to threats and lies.
All that was needed was a bit of self-respect and political work.

5. Even though according to the Mexican state they do not exist, the thousands of “extemporaneous” indigenous communities embrace the thousands of families of the victims of the decisions made at different levels of government in recent years.

6. Although we do not legally exist according to the Mexican government, we ask you all – victims, families, and organizations that support them – to accept this embrace from those who have spent centuries (up to the present day) being victimized by the “decisions of political actors” of all governments across the entire political spectrum.

When we have the complete results, we will ensure they are shared with those who struggle for truth and justice for the victims and their families.

With this communiqué we announce that the Zapatista communities, as of July 31, 2021, are initiating their participation in the National Campaign for Truth and Justice.

That is all.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano
Zapatista Sixth Commission for the National Campaign for Truth and Justice
Mexico, July 2021

Why Yes to the Consultation and Yes to the question.

July of 2021

Summary: A call to participate in the Consultation with the victims in mind. Going to the polls. It is suggested that if you dislike or distrust the Supreme, and rightly so, and think that your participation would be used to legitimize those from above, or that that it is a rehearsal for a later consultation which would extend the mandate of the executive, or that is a waste (yet one more) of pay, or that what the Supreme wants is to negotiate with the exes to bring down the bad vibes a notch, or it is demagoguery pure and simple, then don’t go to the polls.

Instead of this, it is proposed that you write a letter, either individual or collective and that you send it off to an organization of victims, telling them that you honor their pain and that you support them in their demands for truth and justice. Or a newspaper column, a tweet, a comment on your blog, in your newsletter, on your facebook, instagram, or wherever. Or a painting, a song, a mural, a poem, a speech, a sonata, a pirouette, a figure, a play, some art. Or an article of analysis, a colloquium, a lecture, a conference, a seedbed. Or whatever occurs to you. And even more, to make your non-conformity clear, do it extemporaneously, say one or several days after August 1st, and continue it for the rest of the year and the following years. It is stressed that you must get organized because, without even knowing it, you make up part of the future and probable victims of “the political decisions made in the present and coming years by political actors” of the Mexican State. It is that or resign yourself to the fact that when you are the victim, the “political actor” responsible for preventing this from happening to you, of investigating, pursuing, and punishing the guilty parties, declares the you “asked for it,” that he condemns the act and of course, it will be investigated “to the ultimate consequences, regardless of who falls” — as your name, and your personal story, pass into a number and a statistic.

-*-

First: The Zapatista communities will participate extemporaneously in the so-called “Popular Consultation,” following the usos y costumbres of the indigenous peoples, with community assemblies. The results will be sent to the organizations of victims of violence, the search for the disappeared, and prisoners of conscience. Those who have the INE (National Electoral Institute) credential (in fact there are very few), will go to the polls. We ESPECIALLY call upon our indigenous sisters and brothers, organized in the National Indigenous Congress-Indigenous Governing Council to participate also, according to their times and ways, without losing sight of the victims, and holding present all of the murdered brothers and sisters and communities that have been victims of the decisions of those from above before and now, like the long history of plunder, of deceit, of mockery and of contempt, of destruction of territories and disappearance of indigenous languages and cultures.

(Continuar leyendo…)

ZAPATISTA SIXTH COMMISSION.
Mexico.

July 2021.

To the adherents of the Declaration for Life:
To the Europe from Below and to the Left:
To the National and International Sixth:
To the National Indigenous Congress-Indigenous Governing Council:
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:
To the Collective «Llegó la Hora de los Pueblos«:

From: Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.

Compañeras, compañeroas, compañeros:

Sisters, brothers, and hermanoas:

I greet you in the name of the children, women, them, elders and men of the Zapatista communities, and I communicate to you the following:

First.- We already have a strong Zapatista airborne company of 177 Zapatistas ready. It is made up in its totality by nativeso f Mayan roots, from the Cho’ol, Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Tojolabal and Castilian languages. We were born in the geography called Mexico. Our ancestors were born and died in these lands. As the Mexican State does not recognize our identity and origin, and tells us that we are “extemporaneous” (so says the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, that we are “extemporaneous” Mexicans), we have decided to baptize  this unit of Listening and Word [Escucha y Palabra] as “The Extemporaneous.”

As we saw in the dictionaries, “extemporaneous” means “that it is  inopportune, inconvenient”, or “that it is inappropriate for the time in which it happens.” In other words, that we are inopportune, inconvenient and inappropriate.

Never before have we been so adequately defined. We are happy that at last the Mexican State recognizes that this is how it considers the original peoples of this geography called Mexico. I think that’s how it laments not having annihilated us… yet; and that our existence contradicts the official discourse about the «conquest.» Now it is understood that the demand of the government of Mexico to that of Spain, demanding that it ask forgiveness, is for not having exterminated us.

Of the 177 delegates, 62 of us still do not have a passport. The Secretary of Foreign Affairs is in a bind due to the «inconvenience» that we represent. Despite the fact that we have demonstrated our identity and origin, it continues demanding more and more documents. The only thing left for them to do is to ask the governments of Central America to say that we are not citizens of those countries.

(Continuar leyendo…)

VOLANTEM EST ALIO MODO GRADIENDI[i]
(What are we waiting for?)

Any day, any month of any year.

Droughts. Floods. Earthquakes. Volcanic eruptions. Pollution. Current and future pandemics. Assassinations of leaders of originary peoples, human rights defenders and guardians of the earth. Gender violence rising to the level of genocide against women (the foolish suicide of humanity). Racism poorly hidden behind handouts. The criminalization and persecution of difference. The irreparable oblivion of forced disappearance. Repression as a response to legitimate demands. Exploitation of the many by the few. Massive initiatives for the destruction of territories. Desolate villages. The displacement of millions concealed as “migration.” Species at risk of extinction or already just a name on the list of “prehistoric animals.” Enormous profits for the richest of the world’s rich. Extreme misery for the poorest of the world’s poor. The tyranny of money. Virtual reality as a false escape from real reality. Dying nation-states. Each individual a strange enemy. Lies as government policy. Frivolity and superficiality as ideals to aspire to. Cynicism as a new religion. Death as a daily routine. War, always war.

The storm wiping out everything, whispering, advising, screaming:

Give up!

Give up!

Give up!

And nevertheless…

Out there, near and far from our lands and skies, there is someone. A woman, a man, an other [unoa otroa], a group, a collective, an organization, a movement, an originary people, a neighborhood, a street, a town, a house, a room. In the smallest, most forgotten and most distant corner there is someone who says “NO”. Someone who says it quietly, almost inaudibly: who screams it and lives and dies by it. And who rebels and resists. Someone: we must look for them. We must find them. We must listen to them. We must learn from them.

Even if we have to fly to embrace them.

Because, after all, flying is just another way of walking. And walking is our way of fighting, of living.

So, on the Journey for Life, what are we hoping for? We hope to see your heart. We hope that it’s not too late. We hope.. for everything.

I testify.
SupGaleano.
Planet Earth.. or what’s left of it.

«On lâche rien» in French, Spanish, Catalán, Basque, Galician. Interpreted by: HK et les SALTIMBANKS with LA PULQUERIA, TXARANGO, LA TROBA KUNG-FÙ, FERMIN MUGURUZA et DAKIDARRIA.

[i] Flying is another form of walking

The Journey for Life: To What End?

June 2021

A clarification: often when we say “los Zapatistas,” we are not referring to men, but to the Zapatista villages [pueblos]. And when we say “las Zapatistas,” we’re not describing women, but the Zapatista communities [comunidades]. That’s why you’ll notice this ‘gender-hopping’ in our wording. When we refer to gender we always use “otroa” to mark the existence and struggle of those who are neither men nor women (our ignorance on the subject prevents us from going to details—but soon we will learn to name all of the differences).

-*-

  That said, the first thing that you should know or understand about the Zapatistas is that when we are going to do something, we prepare first for the worst. We start with a disastrous ending and prepare in reverse to confront it, or ideally to avoid it.

For example, we imagine being attacked: the usual massacres, genocide disguised as modern civilization, total extermination—and we prepare for those possibilities. On January 1, 1994, we did not imagine defeat: we assumed it as a certainty.

Maybe that helps you understand our initial shock, hesitation, and any puzzling improvisation on our part when, after so much time, effort, and preparation for ruin, we discovered that…we live.

So it is out of that skepticism that we develop our initiatives: some smaller, some larger, all outrageous. Our calls are always directed at “the other,” that which is beyond our daily horizon but which we recognize as necessary in the struggle for life, which is to say in the struggle for humanity.

In the maritime version of this initiative-gamble-delirium-folly, we prepared for the Kraken, a storm, or a stray white whale to wreck the vessel. That’s why we carved canoes and sent them with the 421^st Squadron on La Montaña all the way to Vigo, Galicia, Spanish State, Europe.

We also knew that we might not be welcomed, so we sought in advance consensus for the invasion—that is, the visit… Actually, we’re still not sure whether we’re exactly “welcome”. For more than one man, woman, or other [una, uno, unoa], our presence is annoying, if not frankly disruptive. And we get it: it could be that after a year or more of lockdown, some might find it inconvenient that a group of indigenous Mayans, mere producers and consumers of commodities (electoral or otherwise), would try to talk in person. In person! (Do you remember how that used to be a part of daily life?) And worse, that they would make it their principal mission to listen to you, to pepper you with questions, to share nightmares and, of course, dreams.

(Continuar leyendo…)

The Landing

«El desembarco» by León Gieco performed by León Gieco (Vocals and Harmonica), Jairo (Vocals and Djembe), Silvina Moreno (Vocals), Sandra Corizzo (Vocals), Diego Boris (Harmonica), Antonio Druetta (Mandolin), Pablo Elizondo (Guitar), Luciana Elizondo (Viola da gamba). 2021.

The Landing

From the Other Europe.

Individuals, Groups, Collectives, Organizations and European movements – in collaboration with the 421st Squadron.

June 2021.

P.S. – There is a song by León Gieco[i] called «El Desembarco» [The Landing]. I had it archived in a “pending” folder for years, wondering when and in which video to use it. In the end, I thought that when the time came, I would know.

I thought, as I watched Marijose set foot on Galician soil, not about the song, but about the invisible web that brought music together with a buccaneer boot, worn on a native Mayan foot, stepping onto Iberian soil.

I did a little research and it turns out that the song was released in 2011 on an album of the same name. That was 10 years ago … or more. When was this song born in the heart of León Gieco, our unwitting brother – or sworn brother like Juan Villoro[ii] – who we hold within the great embrace that is Latin America? Months or years before?

Did León dream what the lyrics say?

Is it the same dream had by Marijose when, in April’s fiery embrace, it was decided that Marijose [elloa] would be the first to disembark? Is it the same dream that the late SupMarcos had when he wrote «Sailor on the Mountain» years before the uprising? The same one that kept Don Durito[iii] of the Lacandón Jungle awake when he imagined (or made—we’ll never know) his journey through European lands? Did Comandanta Ramona, the first to leave Zapatista territory and from whose path the National Indigenous Congress was born, dream that dream?  Is it the same one dreamed by then Lieutenant Colonel Insurgente Moisés when – in 2010, on the outskirts of a hut in the mountains of the Mexican southeast – he received the rank of Subcomandante? The one that Señor Ik, SubPedro, and 45 other Zapatistas had moments before falling in combat in January 1994? The one that, collectively, the indigenous Sami people – in the northernmost north of Europe – put forward in their Declaration for Life? Was it the dream of Gonzalo Guerrero[iv] over 500 years ago when he made the path and destiny of the Mayan people his own? Is it that dream that unsettled Jacinto Canek[v]?

Did this dream alleviate to some extent the passing of Comandante Ismael, Dr. Paulina Fernández C., Oscar Chávez, Jaime Montejo, Jean Robert, Paul Leduc, Vicente Rojo, Mario Molina, Ernesto Cardenal and so many family members – all brothers and sisters without knowing it – that we have lost in recent months?

Is it the dream that inspired Europe from below to organize such a terrible and marvelous reception in Vigo?

The one that now travels through the streets, neighborhoods, countryside, and coasts of Europe repeating «Will July rain on Paris»?

Is it the dream that inspired the voices that found echo in the emblematic reflections on the beaches of Vigo and crossed the Atlantic to now take nest in the Zapatista communities?

Because the 421st Squadron descends not from a ship, but from La Montaña, «without weapons, and for life.»

Is this what humanity is? That which weaves the long and hidden thread that unites different and distant geographies and links calendars near and far?

I do not know. But I would recommend to those whose curse is art: Give expression to that dream. Whichever it is, let it be yours.

Because you never know when and where another gaze, another ear, other hands, another step, another heart in another calendar and another geography, will need to take it down from the great shelf of hopes and dreams, open its entrails and plant it, like a seed, in painful reality.

I bear witness,

SupGaleano.
June 2021.

—

[i] Argentine folk rock performer, composer and interpreter.

[ii] Juan Villoro is a Mexican writer and journalist and the son of philosopher Luis Villoro.

[iii] Don Durito’s adventures across Europe in 1999: https://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/1999/10/13/la-hora-de-los-pequenos-durito-carta-4a/

[iv] Gonzalo Guerrero was a sailor from Palos, Andalucia, Spain who was shipwrecked along the Yucatán Peninsula and taken prisoner by the local Maya. Over time he took on Mayan culture as his own, became a Mayan chief, and died fighting alongside the Maya against Spanish conquistadors in defense of Mayan territory.

[v] Jacinto Canek – 18th-century Maya revolutionary who fought against the Spanish in the Yucatán Peninsula of New Spain.

Calamidad Zapatista

 The story of the encounter between SupGaleano and Calamidad [Calamity], including the History of Popcorn and, in the sports section, the first world soccer match, as well as other unhappy (for the Sup) events

Headnotes (just to annoy the footnotes):

(1) The first version of this story was read aloud in the Second Puy ta Cuxlejaltic Film Festival, celebrated in the Caracol of Tulan Kaw in December 2019. The text was unpublished until now. This version maintains the original text and adds some details that may lead some readers to despair, accustomed as they might be to short readings with few ideas. You may detect some spoilers related to what is now known as the “Journey for Life.” Don’t worry though, it often happens that Zapatismo announces things that have not yet happened. This Zapatista irresponsibility is now legendary, so stop complaining.

(2) Unfortunately, this text doesn’t have the special effects that were used in the aforementioned caracol and that earned SupGaleano seven nominations for the “Cardboard Popcorn Kernel,” the highest prize for whomever consumes the most bowls of popcorn drenched in hot sauce without resorting to antacids, which falls in the award category of “with or without a film.”

(3) Warning: The following accounts may contain images that offend those lacking in imagination, intelligence, and other things equally devalued under modernity. It is not recommended for reading by adults over 21, unless supervised by children under 12. What?! Are you going to read on despite this serious warning? Well there you are, nobody has any principles anymore.

(4) This account is based on real events. Names have been maintained to clarify the responsible parties before the Good Government Council’s Justice Commission… What? Yes, you can doubt the truth of what is recounted here, but…didn’t you also doubt that the zapatones would invade Europe? That’s what I thought. All the beings described herein actually exist. If anyone thinks this isn’t possible, that’s not the fault of reality but rather lack of imagination.

(5) Huh? No, I’m not scolding you. As they say, I’m giving you the context for what is and what follows…

-*-

This is the story of a little Zapatista girl who no one loved because she was, and is, different, even among those who are different.

(Continuar leyendo…)

The Zapatista Passport
(See you soon, Portugal; Galicia, here we come).

June of 2021.

On June 12^th, 2021, the 421^st Squadron, as well as the rest of the passengers and crew, had their passports stamped for legal entry into the space or zone known as Schengen and disembarked in Horta, Azores Islands, Portugal, Europe. Gracefully and without losing their composure (so to speak), they debarked from La Montaña [the Mountain]. As it should be, there was a frenzy of dancing, photos, and feasting. Marijose discovered an old prophecy that predicted their arrival. And they played that so-called “game” of the kind where “last one off pays for the food” (Diego Osorno lost). There was a toast to life, of course.

-*-

At 9:17:45am on June 14^th of the current year, La Montaña pulled away from the Portuguese embrace and turned to the northeast at a speed of between 6 and 7 knots. At 12:30:06pm, the ship passed “Pico das Urzes” on the left. Latitude: 38.805213; longitude: -28.343418. Captain Ludwig planned to catch sight of the coast of the Iberian Peninsula somewhere around June 19th or 20th (although it could be sooner, as La Montaña, having reconciled with the wind, seemed eager to embrace her Portuguese and Galician sisters). From that date on, it will greet the rising waters of the San Martino, Monte Faro, and Monte Agudo Islands, and then enter Vigo Bay, planning to arrive at the Marina Punta Lagoa, north of the Port of Vigo, Galicia, Spanish State.

(Continuar leyendo…)

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CONTRA LA REPRESIÓN DE LOS MALOS GOBIERNOS.
APOYO A LA ESCUELA NORMAL RURAL MACTUMACTZÁ EN
CHIAPAS Y A LOS PUEBLOS TEPEHUANO Y WIXÁRIKA EN JALISCO.

CNI-CIG Y EZLN.

Mayo del 2021.

A la Escuela Normal Rural Mactumactzá, Chiapas.
A los pueblos tepehuano y wixárika de San Lorenzo de Azqueltán, Jalisco.
A las organizaciones y colectivos de derechos humanos.
A la Sexta Nacional e Internacional.
A los medios de comunicación.

Como pueblos originarios que somos, organizados en el Congreso Nacional Indígena-Concejo Indígena de Gobierno y el EZLN, declaramos lo siguiente:

PRIMERO.-  Expresamos nuestro repudio a las acciones represivas del mal gobierno en contra de nuestros hermanos de la Escuela Normal Rural Mactumactzá.  Una vez más con lujo de violencia se busca acallar las justas demandas de los normalistas.   El 18 de mayo el mal gobierno detuvo a 91 normalistas, incluyendo a 74 mujeres estudiantes. Éstas han denunciado que los cuerpos policiacos represivos las vieron como botín de guerra y las hostigaron sexualmente desnudándolas y manoseándolas.   L@s normalistas son acusad@s de querer que los exámenes, que les iban a practicar, sean de manera presencial y no por internet.  Con esto las autoridades educativas y gubernamentales de Chiapas muestran, una vez más que no tienen la menor idea de la geografía y la situación política y social en el estado.  Con esta acción, los malos gobiernos resumen su plan para la educación del México rural: represión, mentiras y simulación.  A nuestr@s herman@s de la Escuela Normal Rural Mactumactzá les manifestamos nuestra solidaridad completa y sin reservas; y llamamos a tod@s nuestr@s compañer@s de la Sexta Nacional e Internacional a solidarizarse con la lucha de los normalistas de Mactumactzá.  Exigimos la liberación incondicional de tod@s l@s detenido@s

SEGUNDO.- Como Congreso Nacional Indígena-Concejo Indígena de Gobierno y EZLN saludamos la Campaña Nacional e Internacional por la Justicia y el Territorio en Azquetltán, municipio de Villa Guerrero, en el estado de Jalisco, México.  Ahí resisten por la vida las hermanas y hermanos de la comunidad indígena autónoma, wixárika y tepehuana.

(Continuar leyendo…)