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Part Four: Memory of What Is to Come

October 2020.

Let’s go back, to 35 Octobers ago.

Old Man Antonio watched the bonfire resist the rain. Beneath his dripping straw hat he lights his hand-rolled cigarette with a burning ember. The fire stays alive, hiding occasionally beneath the logs; the wind helps it, its breath reviving the coals, red with rage.

The camp is called “Watapil”[i] and is located in the Sierra Cruz de Plata which rises between the wet arms of the Jataté and Perlas rivers. It’s 1985, and October receives the group with a storm, presaging their future. The tall almond tree (which will become the namesake of that mountain in the insurgent’s vernacular) looks down with compassion at the small, minuscule, insignificant group of men and women at its feet, with their gaunt faces, haggard bodies, bright eyes (perhaps from fever, stubbornness, fear, delirium, hunger or lack of sleep), ragged brown and black clothes, and boots distorted by the knotted vines that are intended to hold their soles in place.

Softly and slowly, his words barely audible over the howl of the storm, Old Man Antonio speaks as if he were talking to himself:

“The Ruler will return again to impose on the color of the earth his harsh word, his ego that kills all reason, his bribe disguised as a handout. (Continuar leyendo…)

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Part Five: The Gaze and the Distance to the Door.

October 2020

Let’s suppose it is possible to choose where to direct your own gaze. Suppose that you could free yourself, if only for a moment, from the tyranny of social networks that impose not only what you see and talk about, but also how you see and how you talk. Then, suppose that you lift your gaze higher: from the immediate to the local to the regional to the national to the global. Can you see that far? Yes, it’s chaos, confusion and disorder out there. Then let’s suppose you are a human being, not a digital application that quickly scans, classifies, orders, judges and sanctions, and as such, you choose where to look… and how to look. It could be (this is just a hypothetical) that looking and judging aren’t the same thing, such that you don’t just choose where to direct your gaze, you also decide what your inquiry is, shifting the question from “Is this good or bad?” to “What is this?” Of course, the former implies a juicy debate (are there still debates?), which in turn leads to “This is good—or bad—because I say so.” Or perhaps to a discussion about what good and evil are, and from there to arguments and citations with footnotes. Yes, you’re right, that’s better than resorting to “likes” and “thumbs up”, but what I’m proposing is to change the starting point: choose where to direct your gaze.

(Continuar leyendo…)

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.

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Part Six: A Mountain on the High Seas

Communique from the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee
General Command of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation

MEXICO

October 5, 2020

To the National Indigenous Congress—Indigenous Governing Council:
To the Sixth in Mexico and abroad:
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:
To all honest people who resist in every corner of the planet:

Sisters, brothers, hermanoas:
Compañeras, compañeros and compañeroas:

We Zapatista originary peoples of Mayan roots send you greetings and want to share with you our collective thought about what we have seen, heard, and felt.

First: We see and hear a socially sick world, fragmented into millions of people estranged from each other, doubled down in their efforts for individual survival but united under the oppression of a system that will do anything to satisfy its thirst for profit, even when its path is in direct contradiction to the existence of planet Earth.

This abomination of a system and its stupid defense of “progress” and “modernity” crashes into the wall of its own criminal reality: femicides. The murder of women has no color or nationality; it is global. If it is absurd and unreasonable for someone to be persecuted, disappeared, or murdered for the color of their skin, their race, their culture or their beliefs, it’s simply unbelievable that the fact of being a woman is equivalent to a death sentence or a life of marginalization.

The criminal logic of the murder of women is that of the system, escalating in predictable fashion (harassment, physical violence, mutilation, and murder) and backed by structural impunity (“she deserved it,” “she had tattoos,” “what was she doing out at that hour?” “dressed like that, what did she expect?”). This happens to women across geographies, social classes, races and ages from early girlhood to old age; gender is the one constant. The system is incapable of explaining how this reality goes hand in hand with its “development” and “progress.” The outrageous statistics say it all: the more “developed” a society is the higher the number of victims in this veritable war on women.

(Continuar leyendo…)

Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation

Mexico

March 16, 2020

To the people of Mexico:
To the peoples of the world:
To the National Indigenous Congress—Indigenous Governing Council:
To the Sixth in Mexico and abroad:
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:

Sisters, brothers, hermanoas:
Compañeros, compañeras, compañeroas:

We write to inform you that:

Given the serious and scientifically proven risk to human life presented by COVID-19 or “Coronavirus”;

Given the frivolous irresponsibility and lack of seriousness shown by the bad governments and the political class in its entirety who are using this serious humanitarian problem to attack each other instead of taking the necessary measures to confront a life-threatening virus which endangers all regardless of nationality, gender, race, language, religion, political affiliation, social class, or history;

Given the lack of accurate and timely information about the spread and severity of the virus and the lack of a coherent plan to confront it, and;

Given that our commitment as Zapatistas is to struggle for life;

We have decided the following:

First: We declare a red alert in all of our communities, towns, barrios, and Zapatista organizational bodies.

Second: To the Juntas de Buen Gobierno [Good Government Councils] and the Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities in Rebellion, we recommend the full and immediate closure of the Caracoles and Centers of Resistance and Rebellion.

Third: To the bases of support and the entire Zapatista organizational structure, we recommend adherence to the series of recommendations and special hygiene measures which will be distributed in all Zapatista communities, towns, and barrios.

Fourth: Given the total absence of the bad governments, we strongly urge everyone [todos, todas, todoas] in Mexico and around the world to follow the necessary scientifically-based sanitary measures that will allow us to survive this pandemic.

Fifth: We call on you to sustain the struggle against femicides and violence against women, to continue the struggle in defense of territory and Mother Earth, to maintain the struggle for the disappeared, murdered, and imprisoned, and to hold high the flag of the struggle for humanity.

Sixth: We call on all not to lose human contact, but rather to temporarily change our forms of relating as compañeras, compañeros, compañeroas, sisters, brothers, and hermanoas.

The word, the listening ear, and the heart have many ways—paths, calendars, and geographies—in and on which to meet. This struggle for life can be one of them.

That’s all.

From the mountains of Southeastern Mexico,
For the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation,

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.
Mexico, March of 2020.

ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION
MEXICO

March 1, 2020

To: Women who struggle in Mexico and around the world
From: The Zapatista indigenous women of the EZLN

Compañera and sister:

We greet you in the name of all of the Zapatista indigenous women of all ages, from the youngest to the wisest—the oldest, that is. We hope you are well and are struggling along with your families, sisters, and compañeras.

Here we are having a lot of problems with the paramilitary forces who now come out of the MORENA party, just like before they came from the PRI, PAN, PRD, and Verde Ecologista parties.

But that’s not what we wanted to talk to you about. We wanted to talk to you about something more urgent and more important: the incredible violence waged against women, which has not only not ceased but actually increased in quantity and in cruelty. The murders and disappearances of women have reached a level that we could not have imagined before, and no woman of any age, class, political affiliation, color, race, or religion is safe. We might think that rich women, women politicians or famous women are safe because they have their security guards and police to protect them, but no, not even they are safe, because the violence that kidnaps, disappears, or kills us often comes from family members, friends, and acquaintances.

We have to stop this violence, wherever it comes from, and that is why we had called for women’s demonstrations on March 8, 2020, in which everyone would organize their actions according to their own ways, times, and places. We had said that the principal demand of these demonstrations should be to stop violence against women, and to declare that we would not forget those murdered and disappeared by all governing administrations, from any party of any color (striped, blue, green, yellow, maroon, orange, brown, or anything else) because they are all the same. We also proposed that we all wear something black on our clothes as a symbol of our mourning for the mass murder of women all over the world and to remind the bad governments and our missing and disappeared compañeras that we would not forget them. The worst part is that even the littlest ones among us are not safe.

Sister and compañera:

A few days ago we learned that a group of feminist sisters from the collective “Witches of the Sea” [Brujas del Mar] in Veracruz had a good idea and called for a women’s strike on March 9, to make clear what things looked and felt like without women. The idea is that we don’t go to work, or buy anything, or move around, that we aren’t seen at all, because that is in fact what it seems like the system is trying to do: annihilate us women as its principal enemy.

Then we saw the reaction of all those patriarchal and macho men and women in the bad government, the political parties, and the big corporations. We saw that they don’t care about the tragedy in which women in Mexico live and die, but only about using that pain for their own gain, then covering it up and arguing over who among them is the biggest badass.

(Continuar leyendo…)

Caracol Jacinto Canek. JBG Flor de nuestra palabra y luz de nuestros pueblos que refleja para todos. Comunidad del CIDECI-Unitierra. Municipio oficial de San Cristóbal de las Casas.

Caracol Resistencia y Rebeldía un Nuevo Horizonte. JBG La luz que resplandece al mundo. Dolores Hidalgo. Tierra recuperada.

Caracol Espiral digno tejiendo los colores de la humanidad en memoria de l@s caídos. JBG Semilla que florece con la conciencia de l@s que luchan por siempre. Tulan Ka’u, tierra recuperada.

Caracol Raíz de las Resistencias y Rebeldías por la humanidad. JBG Corazón de nuestras vidas para el nuevo futuro. Ejido Jolj’a.

Caracol Floreciendo la semilla rebelde. JBG Nuevo amanecer en resistencia y rebeldía por la vida y la humanidad. Poblado Patria Nueva, tierra recuperada.

Caracol Madre de los Caracoles de nuestros sueños. JBG Hacia la Esperanza. La Realidad.

Caracol Torbellino de Nuestras Palabras. JBG Corazón del Arcoiris de la esperanza. Morelia.

Caracol Que habla para todos. JBG Nueva Semilla que va a producir. Roberto Barrios.

Caracol Resistencia Hacia un nuevo amanecer. JBG El camino del Futuro. La Garrucha.

Caracol Resistencia y Rebeldía por la Humanidad. JBG Corazón céntrico de los zapatistas delante del mundo. Oventik.

To the people of Mexico:
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:
To the Sixth in Mexico and abroad:
To the press:

The National Indigenous Congress, Indigenous Governing Council, and Zapatista Army for National Liberation denounce the cowardly arrest of our compañero Miguel López Vega, CNI delegate, member of the Zacatepec community radio and of the People’s Front in Defense of the Land and Water of Puebla, Morelos, and Tlaxcala. This arrest was carried out by armed members of the bad government who, without identifying themselves, detained Miguel on a supposed arrest warrant.

The kidnapping of our compañero outside Government Secretariat Offices today, January 24, at 2:30 pm, is the response of those who say they govern this country to the originary people’s determination to prevent the destruction and industrial contamination of the Metlapanapa River. This repression is their answer to being confronted with life where they only saw money soaked in the pain of our people.

As peoples of the CNI-CIG, we voice our opposition to the destruction and privatization of the Metlapanapa River which, along with the other megaprojects of death, aims to subjugate our country with mourning and war.

We demand immediate freedom for our compañero Miguel López Vega.

Sincerely,
January 2020
Never Again a Mexico Without Us
National Indigenous Congress
Indigenous Governing Council
Zapatista Army for National Liberation

Source: Enlace Zapatista
Audio: Radio Pozol

Words of the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee-General Command of the EZLN, in the voice of Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, on the 26th Anniversary of the Beginning of the War Against Oblivion

.

December 31, 2019.
January 1, 2020.

Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, good day to everyone, [todas, todos y todoas]:

To the compañeras and compañeros who are Zapatista bases of support:
To the compañeras and compañeros who are Zapatista comandantas and comandantes:
To the Zapatista autonomous authorities:
To the compañeras and compañeros who are milicianos, milicianas, insurgentas and insurgentes:
To the National Indigenous Congress – Indigenous Governing Council:
To the National and International Sixth:
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:

Brothers and sisters in Mexico and throughout the world:

Through me, the Zapatista Army for National Liberation speaks.

“Canek said:

I read in a book that in the old days, the rulers wanted to call together armies to defend the lands they governed. First, they called up the cruelest men because they supposed that these men were accustomed to blood. So they drew their armies from the prisons and the slaughterhouses. But it turned out that when these people stood face to face with the enemy, they turned pale and threw down their arms. Then the rulers turned to the strongest men – the stone masons and the miners. To these men, they gave armor and heavy weapons and sent them out to do battle. But again, the mere presence of the enemy instilled weakness in their arms and dismay in their hearts. The rulers wisely then turned to men who were neither strong nor fierce nor bloodthirsty, but were simply brave and had something rightly to defend – the land they worked, the women they slept with and the children whose laughter delighted them. And when the time came, these men fought with so much fury that they drove off their enemies and were forever free of their threats and persecution.” [i]

Sisters, brothers, hermanoas:

It was 26 years ago, on an afternoon like this one, that we came down from our mountains to the big cities in order to challenge those in power. At that time, we had nothing more than our own death – a double death, because we were dying a physical death and also a death of oblivion. We had to choose: whether to die like animals or die like human beings who struggle for their lives.

So it was that when dawn broke on that January 1, we had fire in our hands.

The big boss we faced then is the same one who despises us today. He had another name and another face, but he was and is the same ruler.

We rose up and a space was opened for the word. So we opened our heart to the hearts of other sisters and brothers and compañeros, and our voice was met with support and comfort from all the colors of the world from below.

(Continuar leyendo…)

Listen to and/or download the audio of the closing words in the voice of Comandanta Yésica:
(Descarga aquí)  

December 2019, Encounter of Women Who Struggle. Photo: RZ.

ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION
MEXICO

December 29, 2019

Compañeras and sisters:

We want to share a few words with you as we close this Second International Gathering of Women Who Struggle.

We have listened to the words and proposals everyone has shared in each of our work sessions as well as other proposals that have been made.

We are going to create a space for all of you to see these ideas and proposals, as well as others that emerge, and offer your own words and opinions. This is for those of you who were able to attend this gathering and have returned to your own geographies with time to think and reflect on what we saw and heard here these last few days, and above all it is for those of you who could not attend.

We think this is important because if we don’t listen to each other as the women that we are, then we aren’t really women who struggle for all women, but only for our own group, idea, or organization and that won’t do at all.

While it may be easy to say that we are going to think about and reflect on these proposals, in reality it is difficult, because even for that process we need to be organized.

With that in mind, we propose this first agreement:

1. We all learn about the proposals made here and make our own proposals regarding violence against women and what we will to do stop this serious problem we have as women.

Do you all agree?

As we are preparing this message we don’t know whether you will agree or not. But if we do agree, then we have one year, sister and compañera, to move this work forward. (Continuar leyendo…)