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Es Chinameca y es 10 de abril un siglo después del crimen. Aquí, donde murió asesinado, Zapata quema y nos espabila. El sol abrasador entra por los pies, por la cabeza y hasta por las uñas. Las gargantas secas de los pueblos en lucha y de las organizaciones en resistencia y rebeldía se empapan cuando denuncian otros asesinatos mucho más recientes. Aquí Zapata es anhelo y horizonte. Su recuerdo nos empuja hacia delante. Entre maizales que ya quieren lluvia caminan 134 organizaciones de 28 estados mexicanos y otros cuatro países. Andan a pie la ruta que anduvo Zapata montado en un alazán y acompañado por 15 revolucionarios en 1919. Acostumbradas a seguir andando, voces en lucha exigen un alto al despojo y a la destrucción que generará el Proyecto Integral Morelos con su termoeléctrica. “¡Viva Zapata, vivan los ríos, vivan los bosques!”, van a gritar.

Entreveradas con un festival escolar, decenas de consignas reciben en la puerta de la hacienda a centenares de jóvenes que, mientras marchan, escuchan “¡agua sí, termo no!” y “¡Samir no murió, el gobierno lo mató!”. Desde un templete sencillo, hablan mujeres y hombres del Congreso Nacional Indígena y su Concejo Indígena de Gobierno, del Comité de Padres de Familia de Amilcingo, del Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra y el Agua de Morelos, Puebla y Tlaxcala, de la Asamblea Permanente de los Pueblos de Morelos, de la revolución del Kurdistán, de policías comunitarias, de colectivos de música y arte. La vocera del CIG, María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, transmite el mensaje del Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, vocero del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional que nos convoca y aglutina.

En Amilcingo, en Cuautla, en Ayala y en Huexca, Zapata pesa. De ahí el aplomo con que enfrentan su duelo familiares y compas de lucha de Samir Flores Soberanes, asesinado unos días después de que lo marcara con virulencia un presidente que hoy no se atrevió a venir a señalarnos. Al terminar el acto en Chinameca hay que volver a Huexca. En las puertas de una de las dos termoeléctricas que, junto con un acueducto y un gasoducto, contempla el PIM, la protesta se calienta tanto como el entorno. Ahí el dolor se desborda despacio. La poca prisa con que decenas de personas se arremolinan en la puerta cerrada contrasta con la velocidad a la que abandonan la termo quienes ahí trabajan.

Muy lejos de lo profundo, de lo que duele, se busca impulsar un Zapata a modo y una revolución a la medida de franjas sociales que dicen no querer más violencia mientras aplauden el nacimiento de una guardia nacional. En los albores de nuestra militarización permanente, toda la fuerza de los medios de comunicación gubernamentales, toda la ambición de sus instituciones se concentran en inventar una historia donde la muerte es chida porque es light. El fiasco de Museo de la Revolución Mexicana remodelado por Marcelo Ebrard en 2010 nos advierte que sólo se aceptará hablar de procesos que resulten wow. Zapata hípster, Zapata classy, Zapata súper cool. Una revolución que se contempla y se disfruta porque no habla de despojo, desprecio, explotación ni represión.

Pero “quien lucha por la vida no muere”, como dijo una luchadora en Amilcingo el día anterior, donde tanto Zapata como Samir Flores Soberanes estuvieron presentes de una forma muy otra. Allí, en Amilcingo, en la escuela por la que tanto luchó Samir Flores y que ahora lleva su nombre, se celebró una asamblea que congregó al Congreso Nacional Indígena y su Concejo Indígena de Gobierno, a las Redes de Resistencia y Rebeldía, a adherentes a la Sexta Declaración de la Selva Lacandona y a más de una centena de organizaciones que luchan por la vida en México y varios otros países. En cinco mesas de trabajo se analizó la presente administración y lo que la supuesta “cuarta transformación” significa para los pueblos. El diagnóstico fue unánime: continuidad. Continuidad de un proyecto neoliberal de nación. Continuidad del desarrollismo, de la privatización del sector energético, del despojo de tierras y territorios, de destrucción del medio ambiente, de una educación orientada a los intereses del capital, de la militarización, de la criminalización de la resistencia y la oposición, del clientelismo, de la devastación.

Y sin embargo, también fue unánime la percepción de que esta administración es aún más peligrosa que las anteriores, pues oculta su verdadera afiliación tras un ropaje de “izquierda” y la apropiación de discursos y formas propias de los pueblos, como las supuestas consultas con las que se pretende legitimar megaproyectos devastadores como el Proyecto Integral Morelos, el Corredor Transístmico y el Tren Maya.

Los pueblos, organizaciones e individuos que participaron en la asamblea acordaron unir fuerzas para enfrentar la amenaza, declarando emergencia nacional ante cualquier intento de imponer megaproyectos que atenten contra los pueblos y sus territorios, construyendo y fortaleciendo la articulación de luchas locales, regionales y nacionales. Y será justamente en el Istmo de Tehuantepec, uno de los territorios más amenazados por los proyectos del capital, donde se realizará la segunda asamblea de esta articulación de fuerzas que se rehúsa a aceptar la versión hipster de una revolución inofensiva porque no cambia nada. “Aquí quien habla es la tierra. Es la voz de la tierra, los ríos, las montañas, los cerros, el manantial —dijo la misma compañera, incansable con sus muchos años a cuestas—. Damos gracias a este lugar, porque lo más hermoso de un pueblo es cuando nos unimos todos. Aquí nos quitamos el yugo… es lo que estamos haciendo.”

En Chinameca y en 10 de abril se mezclan pasado y presente con miras a un mejor futuro porque “en esta tierra se gesta la revolución”. Los pueblos que trabajan por tierra y libertad se organizan en el dolor y la rabia. Desde su templete sencillo se escuchan verdades complejas. “Si no nos unimos y no nos volvemos más rebeldes” nos van a seguir aplastando. Que sepan las empresas que “la tierra está viva y a ella nos debemos”, que aquí, como en el Kurdistán, “las mujeres abren los caminos que el patriarcado les cierra” y que “las ideas no pueden ser detenidas”. Zapata vive, Samir vive. Aquí la lucha sigue. “AMLO no es el dueño” del agua ni de la tierra ni del aire ni del fuego. “No le venimos a hacer la guerra; él nos la hizo a nosotros”. Que le informen “que la dignidad no se vende y que la vida no se negocia”. Aquí “nos faltan 43” y miles más. En esta tierra donde mataron a Zapata y a Samir, “cada gota de nuestro sudor, cada sangre es para generar más conciencia”. Aquí nombramos y recordamos cada asesinato, cada desaparición, cada tortura porque no somos “rebaños de esclavos”. Y aunque “ha reaparecido la guerra de antes”, nos organizamos y avanzamos.

Aquí, “la lucha zapatista pervivirá, los pueblos originarios pervivirán”.

Ve las imágenes:
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ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION
MEXICO

April 2019

To the family and friends of Samir Flores Soberanes:
To the Assembly of the Amilcingo Resistance:
To the Morelos-Puebla-Tlaxcala People’s Front in Defense of the Land and Water:
To the National Indigenous Congress:
To the Indigenous Governing Council:
To the National and International Sixth:
To the CIG Support Networks and the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:
To all those who struggle against the capitalist system:

Sisters and brothers:
Compañeros and compañeras:

This is Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés, writing you on behalf of all of the Zapatista women, men, children, and elders. It is my job, as EZLN spokesperson, to communicate our collective word.

We also send you our collective embrace from the mountains of the Mexican southeast to the dignified lands of Emiliano Zapata and his successors in struggle—like Samir Flores Soberanes, our brother and compañero in the struggle to defend life. That embrace comes from all of the Tzotzil, Chol, Tojolabal, Zoque, Mame, Mestizo, and Tzeltal Zapatista peoples. Brothers and sisters, accept this embrace from all of the Zapatistas of the EZLN as a symbol of our respect and admiration.

We aren’t able to be present there with you as we would have liked, for the simple reason that the bad government has increased its military, police, and paramilitary presence in our lands, as well as its use of spies and informants. Flyovers by military planes and helicopters and armored vehicle patrols have once again reappeared here, just as during the presidencies of Carlos Salinas de Gortari [1988-1994], of Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León [1994-2000] (political mentor of the current president), of Vicente Fox Quesada [2000-2006] after the betrayal of the San Andrés Accords, of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (that psychopath), and of that pompadoured thief in a suit and tie named Enrique Peña Nieto, but now with greater frequency and aggression.

Those patrols and flyovers are not monitoring the narco-trafficking routes, nor the routes of those exhausted caravans of our migrant brothers and sisters who are fleeing one unrecognized war to enter another, the latter hidden behind that yammering bully who occupies the [US] presidency. No, this death threat passes by air and by land through the indigenous communities who have decided to maintain their resistance and rebellion in defense of the land, and thus in defense of life.

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“¿Dónde está pues tu lucecita que te dimos?”

Con Ramona,
Nuestra mayora, color de la tierra

Con Bety Cariño,
Nuestra hermana asesinada por los cobardes

Con Eulodia Díaz y todas las mujeres asesinadas y desaparecidas,

Nosotras las mujeres del Concejo Indígena de Gobierno/Congreso Nacional Indígena

En armonía con nuestra madre naturaleza, con nuestras ancestras y con todos los buenos espíritus de este mundo,

Las invitamos a todas las mujeres que luchan con resistencia y rebeldía por construir un mundo no patriarcal, no capitalista y no colonial (o que quieren aprender a hacerlo) a participar en nuestro

SEGUNDO ENCUENTRO NACIONAL DE MUJERES

LOS DÍAS 27 Y 28 DE JULIO DEL 2019 (llegada desde el 26 de Julio por la tarde)

EN LA COMUNIDAD NAHUA DE SAN JUAN VOLADOR, MPIO DE PAJAPAN, SUR DE VERACRUZ

En seguimiento al primer encuentro realizado en Julio 2018 en la comunidad de San Lorenzo Nenamicoyan, Jilotepec, Estado de México, con los siguientes objetivos:

1. Evaluar y compartir nuestros avances relativos a los acuerdos del primer encuentro de mujeres que convocamos las mujeres del CNI
2. Intercambiar nuestras experiencias de lucha para seguir articulando nuestra organización como mujeres anticapitalistas, descolonizadoras y antipatriarcales.
3. Concretizar el acuerdo de formar una red de compartición de saberes.
4. Compartir nuestros sueños y sus expresiones diversas hacia otros mundos posibles.
5. Tomar acuerdos para realizar nuestros sueños en la lucha antipatriarcal, descolonizadora y anticapitalista.
6. Seguir tejiendo redes nacionales e internacionales de mujeres comprometidas con la lucha antipatriarcal, descolonizadora y anticapitalista.

Favor de registrarse al más tardar el 21 de Julio al siguiente correo: encuentromujcni2019@gmail.com

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https://vimeo.com/322909352

To the people of Mexico:
To the people of the world:
To the CIG Support Networks:
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:
To the National and International Sixth:
To the media:

The plans for dispossession and destruction that the bad governments call the “Isthmus of Tehuantepec Development Program,” are for us as originary peoples an announcement of the tragedy they now intend to extend through the territories of all of the Isthmus peoples.

As the CNI-CIG, we reject and condemn the bad governments’ so-called referendum, to be carried out throughout the Isthmus communities March 30 and 31, which simulates consultation of our peoples in order to impose these megaprojects of death.

We denounce the corrupt practices with which the bad governments, through their National Institute for Indigenous Peoples, have sought to divide, deceive, and intimidate our communities, offering programs and projects in exchange for yes votes in their so-called referendums, as if it were not precisely our territories and natural resources which are at stake.

The Binizzá, Ikoot, Chontal, Zoque, Nahua and Popoluca originary peoples who inhabit the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz have already made clear our “NO” to these megaprojects of death, which will lead to the destruction of our territories and the death of our mother earth.

We reject the invasion of our territories by mining companies that will destroy the mountains, springs, rivers, and air, as well as by the wind power companies that use the wind as a tool of negotiation to displace us from our lands. We do not want their trains, which only transport death, nor their repressive military or paramilitary violence, which devastate our territories.

We state once again that we will not cease in our struggle to protect mother earth and our indigenous communities and territories no matter how many simulated referendums the bad neoliberal capitalist government carries out in order to impose—via war—projects that prioritize money over the life of the originary peoples and of nature. On the contrary, we will continue to organize ourselves in resistance and rebellion with all those below.

We call upon all honest organizations and collectives, on the CIG support networks and on the national and international Sixth to be alert and ready to respond in solidarity to this new attempt to impose projects of dispossession.

Attentively,
March of 2019

For the Full Reconstitution of Our Peoples
Never Again a Mexico Without Us

National Indigenous Congress
Indigenous Governing Council
Zapatista Army for National Liberation

Convocation to the Events:
“Zapata Lives, Samir Lives, The Struggle Continues”
on the 100^thAnniversary of the Assassination of General Emiliano Zapata Salazar

Given that:

Our brother Samir Flores Soberanes was murdered by the neoliberal regime—we don’t know if it was the government, big business, their criminal cartels, or all three together.

The so-called “Fourth Transformation” began with Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, was intensified by Carlos Salinas de Gortari, continued as a war of conquest by Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, Vicente Fox Quezada, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, and Enrique Peña Nieto; and is now extended through the long-term project of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the Party of National Regeneration [MORENA]. For the originary peoples, the only “real change” will be an increase in lies, tricks, persecution, threats, imprisonment, displacement, murder, mockery and disrespect, human exploitation and natural destruction—in sum, the annihilation of the collective life that we are.

The current neoliberal government headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador has its sights set on our peoples and territories. Using its “National Institute for Indigenous Peoples”, it has put into place a web of cooptation and disorganization that clears the way for a war whose principal front will be industrialization. This war will be implemented via infrastructure projects and violence and backed by the armed forces and the soon-to-be National Guard, casting a dark shadow of death and destruction over the originary peoples of our country.

We restate our firm opposition to the neoliberal policies of old and new governments; to the referendums or whatever they choose to call them whose only purpose is our displacement from and dispossession of our territories; to mining, to the damming of our rivers, to highway construction and the acceleration of real estate speculation throughout our lands, to the construction of neoliberal megaprojects of death like the Integral Project for Morelos, the Trans-isthmus Corridor, and the Mayan Train.

We have not forgotten that the struggle led by General Emiliano Zapata Salazar and the Liberation Army of the South and Center represented and continues to represent the interests and aspirations of our peoples and of millions of the exploited in Mexico and the world. This upcoming April 10 is the 100^thanniversary of the cowardly murder of General Emiliano Zapata Salazar by the political regime that, despite its “transformations”, continues to govern today.

Given this, we convoke a National Assembly of the indigenous peoples of the National Indigenous Congress/ Indigenous Governing Council, adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle, the Support Networks for the Indigenous Governing Council, and collectives and organizations organized in struggle against capitalism, to take place on April 9 of this year in the indigenous community of Amilcingo, municipality of Temoac, Morelos, from 10:00am-6:00pm.

We also convoke a national and international mobilization to mark the 100^th anniversary of the murder of General Emiliano Zapata Salazar. The mobilization’s epicenter will be Chinameca, Morelos, on April 10, 2019, beginning at 9:00am.

The schedule of activities will be published shortly.
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Texto y fotos: Eugenia Gutiérrez, Colectivo RZ.
Ciudad de México, 8 de marzo, 2019.

Era vida el tema
y tanto le escribimos a la muerte
Ayari Lüders

Cuando avancen los siglos y las mujeres futuras hablen de este tiempo feminicida, un elemento saltará a la vista en cualquier análisis histórico. A diferencia de otras épocas en que las mujeres hemos luchado contra la violencia podrá observarse en ésta la huella dejada por las mujeres zapatistas y por miles de mujeres de comunidades indígenas y pueblos originarios organizadas en todo el mundo. Esa huella será entonces tan visible como fogata en una cueva.

Hace un año, en tierras rebeldes de Chiapas, México, miles de mujeres presentes o no en el Caracol de Morelia respondimos al llamado de las indígenas del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional para participar en el Primer Encuentro Internacional, Político, Artístico, Deportivo y Cultural de Mujeres que Luchan. Conscientes de la violenta realidad que vivimos, miles de mujeres celebramos el 8 de marzo de 2018 luchando con las mujeres zapatistas. Ahí surgió el compromiso de mantenernos vivas y de volver a reunirnos un año después. Como símbolo de ese acuerdo, las rebeldes zapatistas encendieron una luz que se multiplicó por miles. Este 2019, las zapatistas anunciaron la cancelación del segundo encuentro que iba a realizarse de nuevo en Chiapas, pues las presiones y las amenazas de despojo y devastación que ha lanzado el gobierno entrante lo hacen inviable. No obstante, y aunque hemos visto partir a muchas, las que seguimos aquí estamos aprendiendo a organizarnos con otra mirada en oposición a un sistema patriarcal, capitalista y colonial que se empeña en suponer, equivocadamente, que aceptamos como destino la mera sobrevivencia. Las actividades de este mes y de meses siguientes caminan firmes. (Continuar leyendo…)

SAMIR LIVES! THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES!
Declaration from the Third National Assembly of the National Indigenous Congress, the Indigenous Governing Council, and the EZLN

To the peoples of the world:
To those organizations and collectives acting in resistance and rebellion:
To the national and international Sixth:
To the media:

As Ayuuk, Binizza, Chinanteco, Chol, Chontal, Guarijío, Maya, Mayo, Mazahua, Mazateco, Mixteco, Nahua, Nayeri, Otomí, Popoluca, Purépecha, Raramuri, Tepehuano, Tlapaneco, Tojolabal, Totonaco, Tzeltal, Tsotsil, Wixárika, Yaqui, Zoque, and Quichua (Ecuador) peoples, we have come together for the Third National Assembly of the National Indigenous Congress and the Indigenous Governing Council. Today, almost 100 years after the assassination of General Emiliano Zapata, we now face the pain and rage brought by the war waged against our peoples and the murder of our compañero Samir, killed for defending the land and his people. As a national assembly, we send our embrace of solidarity and struggle to his family and the community of Amilcingo, Morelos. As the CNI-CIG and the EZLN, for whom compañero Samir will always be a glimmer of light, we send our solidarity and collective embrace.

Samir was killed by the neoliberal regime—we don’t know if it was the government, the business class, their criminal cartels, or all three together. The path was laid for this cowardly murder by the new federal executive, Andrés Manuel López Obrador [AMLO], through his offers of support not to those below, but rather to the owners of money and power, while making veiled threats against those of us who defend and fight for life. AMLO has promised to hand over to big business and the military elite what neoliberal capitalism and all of its various bad governments never could: our land. His administration’s new Agrarian Development Law aims to dismantle collective organization and collective property forms, deeming as “development” what is actually shameless theft and destruction. This is accompanied by military threats to our peoples via his “National Guard” in what amounts to the total reconfiguration of our country.

What above they call “transformation” has always mean the same thing for our peoples: we give our lives so that powerful and oligarchic interests, fewer and fewer but bigger and bigger, can live off of oppression, exploitation, and destruction. The so-called “Fourth Transformation”[i] follows the same path as the previous three, although more brutally and cynically, if such a thing is possible.

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Letter in Japanese
Letter in Turkish
Letter in Italian
Letter in Portuguese
Letter in French
Letter in German
Letter in Spanish

LETTER TO THE ZAPATISTA WOMEN
FROM THE WOMEN WHO STRUGGLE IN MEXICO AND THE WORLD
(signed by 891, Organizations, Collectives, Networks, and Individuals)

To our compañeras Zapatistas
To the women of the world who struggle
To the grandmothers, mothers, sisters, youth and girls
To those who have the heart of a woman

We the undersigned are women of Mexico and the world, convened by the Zapatista women on March 8th, 2018 in the First International Political, Artistic, Cultural and Sports Encounter of Women Who Struggle.

We reaffirm that every one of us committed ourselves to struggle, each one from our own place of origin or new home places, from our distinct cultures and occupations, so that “not one more woman in the world, regardless of color, size, or place of origin, should feel alone or afraid anymore”. We committed ourselves to the light that all of you shared with us in our gathering, and to the light that all of you represent to all of us. We keep that light alive in order to be, to walk and to struggle together.

Today we proclaim that we will not allow the bad governments to destroy your worlds and displace you from the territories that provide the roots, heartbeat and direction to your lives and dreams. We will denounce, through multiple venues and modes, the misuse of practices of cultural resistance, staging ancestral people’s rituals to justify megaprojects of death and sickness imposed by the patriarchal capitalist system.

Given the conditions of war that we continue to face every day as women, we reaffirm our agreement to “stay alive, and for us to live is to struggle, each one according to her means, her time and her place.”

Now is the time to tell the bad governments, past and present, in every corner and place in the world, that we repudiate, from our multiple locations and territories, the practices of concessions, extraction, and the misuse and abuse of our Mother Earth. “Fracking,” gas and oil pipelines, massive hydroelectric dams, extensive agro-industrial monocultures of crops and trees, and infrastructure for corporate tourism in indigenous territories, all benefit major commercial projects, at the cost of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples’ lives and territories. In the face of profit-seeking interests, we will struggle for Life, for the lives and territories of people and other living beings.

As women, we know the value of life and for this reason we work to build conditions that support life. We declare that yes, we can do this, we women with our collective hearts. You are not alone compañeras zapatistas, friends, and sisters, and neither are your children, families and peoples!

Quotations excerpted from Zapatista Women (2018) Zapatista Women’s Opening Address at the First International Gathering of Politics, Art, Sport, and Culture for Women in Struggle. March 8, 2018. Caracol in the Tzots Choj zone. March 26, 2018, Enlace Zapatista:
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2018/03/26/zapatista-womens-opening-address-at-the-first-international-gathering-of-politics-art-sport-and-culture-for-women-in-struggle/

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(See also: Letter to the Zapatista women from the women who struggle in Mexico and the world)

ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION
MEXICO

February 2019

To: Women in struggle everywhere in the world
From: The Zapatista Women

Sister, compañera:

We as Zapatista women send you our greetings as the women in struggle that we all are.

We have sad news for you today, which is that we are not going to be able to hold the Second International Encounter of Women in Struggle here in Zapatista territory in March of 2019.

Maybe you already know the reasons why, but if not, we’re going to tell you a little about them here.

The new bad governments have said clearly that they are going to carry forward the megaprojects of the big capitalists, including their Mayan Train, their plan for the Tehuantepec Isthmus, and their massive commercial tree farms. They have also said that they’ll allow the mining companies to come in, as well as agribusiness. On top of that, their agrarian plan is wholly oriented toward destroying us as originary peoples by converting our lands into commodities and thus picking up what Carlos Salinas de Gortari started but couldn’t finish because we stopped him with our uprising.

All of these are projects of destruction, no matter how they try to disguise them with lies, no matter how many times they multiply their 30 million votes. The truth is that they are coming for everything now, coming full force against the originary peoples, their communities, lands, mountains, rivers, animals, plants, even their rocks. And they are not just going to try to destroy us Zapatista women, but all indigenous women—and all men for that matter, but here we’re talking as and about women.

In their plans our lands will no longer be for us but for the tourists and their big hotels and fancy restaurants and all of the businesses that make it possible for the tourists to have these luxuries. They want to turn our lands into plantations for the production of lumber, fruit, and water, and into mines to extract gold, silver, uranium, and all of the minerals the capitalists are after. They want to turn us into their peons, into servants who sell our dignity for a few coins every month.

Those capitalists and the new bad governments who obey them think that what we want is money. They don’t understand that what we want is freedom, that even the little that we have achieved has been through our struggle, without any attention, without photos and interviews, without books or referendum or polls, and without votes, museums, or lies. They don’t understand that what they call “progress” is a lie, that they can’t even provide safety for all of the women who continue to be beaten, raped, and murdered in their worlds, be they progressive or reactionary worlds.

How many women have been murdered in those progressive or reactionary worlds while you have been reading these words, compañera, sister? Maybe you already know this but we’ll tell you clearly here that in Zapatista territory, not a single woman has been murdered for many years. Imagine, and they call us backward, ignorant, and insignificant.

Maybe we don’t know which feminism is the best one, maybe we don’t say “cuerpa” [a feminization of “cuerpo,” or body] or however it is you change words around, maybe we don’t know what “gender equity” is or any of those other things with too many letters to count. In any case that concept of “gender equity” isn’t even well-formulated because it only refers to women and men, and even we, supposedly ignorant and backward, know that there are those who are neither men nor women and who we call “others” [otroas] but who call themselves whatever they feel like. It hasn’t been easy for them to earn the right to be what they are without having to hide because they are mocked, persecuted, abused, and murdered. Why should they be obligated to be men or women, to choose one side or the other? If they don’t want to choose then they shouldn’t be disrespected in that choice. How are we going to complain that we aren’t respected as women if we don’t respect these people? Maybe we think this way because we are just talking about what we have seen in other worlds and we don’t know a lot about these things. What we do know is that we fought for our freedom and now we have to fight to defend it so that the painful history that our grandmothers suffered is not relived by our daughters and granddaughters.

We have to struggle so that we don’t repeat history and return to a world where we only cook food and bear children, only to see them grow up into humiliation, disrespect, and death.

We didn’t rise up in arms to return to the same thing.

We haven’t been resisting for 25 years in order to end up serving tourists, bosses, and overseers.

We will not stop training ourselves to work in the fields of education, health, culture, and media; we will not stop being autonomous authorities in order to become hotel and restaurant employees, serving strangers for a few pesos. It doesn’t even matter if it’s a few pesos or a lot of pesos, what matters is that our dignity has no price.

Because that’s what they want, compañera, sister, that we become slaves in our own lands, accepting a few handouts in exchange for letting them destroy the community.

Compañera, sister:

When you came to these mountains for the 2018 gathering, we saw that you looked at us with respect, maybe even admiration. Not everyone showed that respect—we know that some only came to criticize us and look down on us. But that doesn’t matter—the world is big and full of different kinds of thinking and there are those who understand that not all of us can do the same thing and those who don’t. We can respect that difference, compañera, sister, because that’s not what the gathering was for, to see who would give us good reviews or bad reviews. It was to meet and understand each other as women who struggle.

Likewise, we do not want you to look at us now with pity or shame, as if we were servants taking orders delivered more or less politely or harshly, or as if we were vendors with whom to haggle over the price of artisanship or fruit and vegetables or whatever. Haggling is what capitalist women do, though of course when they go to the mall they don’t haggle over the price; they pay whatever the capitalist asks in full and what’s more, they do so happily.

No compañera, sister. We’re going to fight with all our strength and everything we’ve got against these mega-projects. If these lands are conquered, it will be upon the blood of Zapatista women. That is what we have decided and that is what we intend to do.

It seems that these new bad governments think that since we’re women, we’re going to promptly lower our gaze and obey the boss and his new overseers. They think what we’re looking for is a good boss and a good wage. That’s not what we’re looking for. What we want is freedom, a freedom nobody can give us because we have to win it ourselves through struggle, with our own blood.

Do you think that when the new bad government’s forces—its paramilitaries, its national guard—come for us we are going to receive them with respect, gratitude, and happiness? Hell no. We will meet them with our struggle and then we’ll see if they learn that Zapatista women don’t give in, give up, or sell out.

Last year during the women’s gathering we made a great effort to assure that you, compañera and sister, were happy and safe and joyful. We have, nevertheless, a sizable pile of complaints that you left with us: that the boards [that you slept on] were hard, that you didn’t like the food, that meals were expensive, that this or that should or shouldn’t have been this way or that way. But later we’ll tell you more about our work in preparing the gathering and about the criticisms we received.

What we want to tell you now is that even with all the complaints and criticisms, you were safe here: there were no bad men or even good men looking at you or judging you. It was all women here, you can attest to that.

Well now it’s not safe anymore, because capitalism is coming for us, for everything, and at any price. This assault is now possible because those in power feel that many people support them and will applaud them no matter what barbarities they carry out. What they’re going to do is attack us and then check the polls to see if their ratings are still up, again and again until we have been annihilated.

Even as we write this letter, the paramilitary attacks have begun. They are the same groups as always—first they were associated with the PRI, then the PAN, then the PRD, then the PVEM, and now with MORENA.

So we are writing to tell you, compañera, sister, that we are not going to hold a women’s gathering here, but you should do so in your lands, according to your times and ways. And although we won’t attend, we will be thinking about you.

Compañera, sister:

Don’t stop struggling. Even if the bad capitalists and their new bad governments get their way and annihilate us, you must keep struggling in your world. That’s what we agreed in the gathering: that we would all struggle so that no woman in any corner of the world would be scared to be a woman.

Compañera, sister: your corner of the world is your corner in which to struggle, just like our struggle is here in Zapatista territory.

The new bad governments think that they will defeat us easily, that there are very few of us and that nobody from any other world supports us. But that’s not the case, compañera, sister, because even if there is only one of us left, she’s going to fight to defend our freedom.

We aren’t scared, compañera, sister.

If we weren’t scared 25 years ago when nobody even knew we existed, we certainly aren’t going to be scared now that you have seen us—however you saw us, good or bad, but you saw us.

Compañera, hermana:

Take care of that little light that we gave you. Don’t let it go out.

Even if our light here is extinguished by our blood, even if other lights go out in other places, take care of yours because even when times are difficult, we have to keep being what we are, and what we are is women who struggle.

That’s all we wanted to say, compañera, sister. In summary, we’re not going to hold a women’s gathering here; we’re not going to participate. If you hold a gathering in your world and anyone asks you where the Zapatistas are, and why didn’t they come, tell them the truth: tell them that the Zapatista women are fighting in their corner of the world for their freedom.

That’s all, compañeras, sisters, take care of yourselves. Maybe we won’t see each other again.

Maybe they’ll tell you not to bother thinking about the Zapatistas anymore because they no longer exist. Maybe they’ll tell you that there aren’t any more Zapatistas.

But just when you think that they’re right, that we’ve been defeated, you’ll see that we still see you and that one of us, without you even realizing it, has come close to you and whispered in your ear, only for you to hear: “Where is that little light that we gave you?”

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,

The Zapatista Women
February 2019