Tributo al Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional! Viva la revolución!!!
thanx 2
Showing posts with label Zapatista. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zapatista. Show all posts
5/4/09
2/11/09
Zapatista Film/Doco Festival - Feb 20,21,22
Zapatista Film/Doco Festival
20, 21, 22 February 2009
62 St. Georges Road, Northcote
Download festival Flyer
Inspiring, creating, fighting
“...We want a world where many worlds are possible...”
Sub Marcos, Zapatista National Liberation Army, Chiapas, Mexico
It is New Year’s Night 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) comes into effect. For the indigenous communities & popular activists in the Lacandona Jungle of South-eastern Mexico, Chiapas, NAFTA symbolizes the culmination of over 500 years of exploitation. During the night, 2,000 indigenous soldiers occupy several cities in the state of Chiapas and declare political and economic independence. They call themselves the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN).
The Zapatista uprising in Chiapas was certainly one of the most dramatic and important instances in our time of a genuine grassroots movement against oppression, we believe that their words and practice can inspire a new generation of activist to see that it is possible for ordinary people, without wealth and advance weapons, to challenge state power successfully.
How after 15 years does the historic and ongoing Zapatista uprising continue to transform the world? How did the poetic fury of their movement become part of the rising tide that sent waves of resistance crashing through the streets of, Seattle, Genoa, Quebec, Washington D.C., France, Greece and Melbourne? What are their weapons? Was it their words? We hope we can answer these questions during and after the Zapatista Festival
The ZAPATISTA Film/doco festival will try to offers to all of us a new way of thinking about political struggle and what we means to live as a human being. We have more than 10 films documentaries from Zapatistas Communities, Mapuche struggles, Brazil (MST), Bolivia (indigenous struggles and others), and shorts presentations from different Latin American indigenous and popular grassroots organisations in struggle today.
The Festival is an inspiring first-hand account of a struggle that will challenge the way we think about the world and our commitments for change
We would like to thank everyone, who contributed to this festival with video productions, people without any experience, professionals, grassroots community productions and Chiapas media project/Promedios for their main contribution to the first inspiring Zapatista film doco festival.
All proceeds from this Festival will support the Third Latin American Solidarity Gathering
“Focus on Colombia and Chile” on July 2009, and the Lake Cowal Gathering on April-Easter 2009
At International Workers’ Centre, 62 St. Georges Road, Northcote
$15 three days (whole Festival) or $8 per day
More info lasnet@latinlasnet.org or call 0400 914 944
Detailed schedule at www.latinlasnet.org
Drinks available, NON BYO, Food provided by Food not bombs, Dinner Friday and Saturday, 7:00 PM
Organised by Latin American Solidarity Network (LASNET)
Supported by Chiapas Media Project/Promedios and Mexico Australia Solidarity Network (MASN)
“The aim is to listen and learn about the struggles, the resistance and rebel movements, support them and bind them together to build a national anti-capitalist, leftist program.”, EZLN
Zapatista Film/Doco Schedules
Friday February 20
6:00 pm “Zapatista” The Movie, a production of Big Noise, 48 minutes
10 minutes open discussion
7:00 pm Dinner, Food Not Bombs
7:30 pm Bolivia, the indigenous from the Andes, a report from England, 30 minutes
8:15pm The Militarisation of Guerrero - Chiapas Media Project/Promedios (CMP/P), 35 minutes
10 minutes open discussion
9:00 pm We are equal, Zapatista women speak - CMP/P, 19 minutes
9:30 pm Festival first day close
Saturday February 21
4:00pm Brazil, “Roots” MST (Landless Movement) struggles for dignity, 42 minutes
20 minutes open discussion
5:15pm Oaxaca, Images of Repression in Oaxaca, 51 minutes
20 minutes open discussion
6:30pm Voice of the Voiceless, a direct production of communities in resistance, 12 minutes
15+- minutes open discussion
7:00pm Dinner, Food Not Bombs
7:30pm A very big train called the Other Campaign, productions audiovisual caracoles Zapatistas, 40 minutes
20 minutes open discussion
8:30pm “You are saying that we can’t pass”, 12 minutes and “Letter for our words” production”, 13 minutes Chiapas Media Projects/Promedios production.
9:30 pm Festival Second day close
Sunday Feb 22
2:00pm, “Switch Off”, Mapuche people struggles against Electric Multinational in Chile, Mapuche are the majority indigenous population in Chile, they support the Zapatista struggle, 65 minutes
10 minutes open discussion
3:40pm, On the Edge, The Femicide in Ciudad Juarez, 57 minutes
20 minutes open discussion
4:55pm, Guatemala, Coffee Justice, 14 minutes
10 minutes open discussion
5:30pm, Water and Autonomy in Zapatistas communities, 15 minutes, Chiapas media Project/Promedios
20 minutes open discussion
6:30pm food and refreshments
7:00pm “the Last Zapatistas and their impact in the EZLN, 48 minutes
20 minutes open discussion
8:30 Zapatista Festival close
"We are sorry for the inconvenience, but this is a revolution."
Sub Marcos, EZLN
9/22/08
EZLN announce First Global Festival of Dignified Rage
Communiqué from the of the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command, of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation
Sixth Commission—Intergalactic Commission of the EZLN
Mexico
September 15 and 16 of 2008
To the adherents of the Sixth Declaration and the Other Campaign:
To the adherents of the Zezta Interazional:
To the People of Mexico:
To the Peoples of the World:
Compañeras and Compañeros:
Brother and Sisters:
Once again we send you our words.
This is what we see, what we are looking at.
This is what has come to our ears, to our brown heart.
I.
Above they intend to repeat history.
They want to impose on us once again their calendar of death, their geography of destruction.
When they are not trying to strip us of our roots, they are destroying them.
They steal our work, our strength.
They leave our world, our land, our water, and our treasures without people, without life.
The cities pursue and expel us.
The countryside both kills us and dies on us.
Lies become governments and dispossession is the weapon of their armies and police.
We are the illegal, the undocumented, the undesired of the world.
We are pursued.
Women, young people, children, the elderly die in death and die in life.
And there above they preach to us resignation, defeat, surrender, and abandonment.
Here below we are being left with nothing.
Except rage.
And dignity.
There is no ear for our pain, that is not like what we are.
We are no one.
We are alone, alone with our dignity and our rage.
Rage and dignity are our bridges, our languages.
We must listen to each other then, learn to know each other.
So that our courage and rage grows and becomes hope.
So that our dignity takes root again and births another world.
We have seen and heard.
Our voice is small to be the echo of that word, our gaze small for so much dignified rage.
The process of seeing each other, looking at each other, speaking to each other, listening to each other, is still lacking.
We are others, the other.
If this world does not have a place for us, then another world must be made.
With no tool other than our rage, no material other than our dignity.
We still must encounter each other more, know each other better.
What is missing is yet to come…
II.
Now, three years after the Sixth Declaration of the Lacondon Jungle, the EZLN has undertaken a collective reflection, nourished by the broad horizon that our compañeros of the Other Campaign in Mexico and in the Zezta Internazional across the world have given to us.
It is not little that we have seen and heard, sometimes directly, sometimes through the words and the gaze of others.
The rage that we felt and the dignity that we found was so great that we think now that we are smaller then we thought before.
In Mexico and on the five continents we have found what we intuited when we began our sixth step: there is another world, there is another path.
If the catastrophe that is coming can be avoided and humanity is to have another opportunity, it will because these others, below and to the left, not only resist, but are already drawing the profile of something else.
Something different than what is occurring above.
In the impossible geometry of political power, the fundamentalists are distributed evenly: the right becomes ultra-right and the institutional left becomes the impossible cultured right. Those who make up the progressive media complain that the fanatics of the mainstream press censure them, twist their words and slander their cause, but they at the same time censure, twist the words, slander, and silence any movement that hasn’t bowed down to the dictates of their ringleaders. And without shame they condemn and acquit to the rhythm of a senseless media rating. Fanatics on all sides fight over lies dressed as truths and crimes are measured by the media time that they occupy. But this is nothing other than a pale reflection of what is happening in politics.
Weariness of the cynicism and incompetence of the traditional political classes has been converted into rage. Sometimes this rage is oriented toward hoping for change in the same paths and places as always, and it is there immobilized by disillusionment or trampled by an arbitrary force. The unsettled and brutal north goes back to its old ways. When it is not sponsoring electoral fraud (like in Mexico), it is promoting, encouraging, and financing state coups (as attempted now in Bolivia and Venezuela). War continues to be its primary and favored form of international diplomacy. Iraq and Afghanistan burn, but, to the despair of those above, are not consumed.
The impositions of hegemony and homogeneity on a global scale find in nations, in regions, and in small locales, their witches’ apprentices that try for that impossible historic return to a past where fanaticism was law and dogma, science. Meanwhile, the governing political classes have found in the world of bright lights an adequate disguise to hide their full participation in organized crime.
Sickened by so much greed, the planet begins to pay the unpayable bill of its destruction. But “natural” disasters are also class issues and their devastation is felt most by those who have nothing and are no one. Faced with this, the stupidity of Power has no limits: millions and millions of dollars are dedicated to manufacturing new weapons and installing more military bases. The Power of capital does not worry about training teachers, doctors, engineers, but rather soldiers. It doesn’t prepare constructors, but rather destructors.
And those who opposed this are the pursued, incarcerated, murdered.
In Mexico, farmers who have defended their land are in prison (San Salvador Atenco); in Italy those who opposed the installation of military bases are pursued and treated as terrorists; in the France of “liberty, equality, and fraternity,” humans are only free, equal, and brothers if their papers say so; in Greece being young is a vice that must be eradicated; again in Mexico, but now in that city of the same name, young people are criminalized and murdered and nothing is done because it is not on the agenda that those above dictate. Meanwhile, a legitimate referendum is converted into a shameful way for and assassin-governor to wash his hands of a situation. In the Spain of the modern European Union, publications are closed and a language, Euskera, is criminalized—they think that by killing the word they can kill those who speak it; in that Asia that is so close, the peasant demands are answered with armored injustices; in that arrogant American Union, born in the blood of migrants, the “other colors” that work there are pursued and killed; in the long wound that is Latin America, the brown blood that sustains it is despised and humiliated; in the rebellious Caribbean, a people, the Cuban people, are forced to live under an imperial embargo that is nothing other than a punishment without crime.
And in all of the corners of the world’s geography, and in all of the days of its calendars, those that work, those that make things run, are plundered, despised, exploited, and repressed.
But sometimes, many times, as many times as a smile sets it off again, rage looks for its own paths, new paths, other paths. And the “no” that these multiple rages raise now not only resists, but begins to propose, to become.
Since our appearance in public, now almost 15 years ago, it has been our goal to be a bridge on which the many rebellions in the world can walk back and forth.
Sometimes we have achieved this, sometimes we haven’t.
Now we see and we feel not only the rebellious resistance that, as sister and comrade, stays at our side and encourages our steps.
Now there is something that before wasn’t there, or that we weren’t able to see before.
There is a creative rage.
A rage that paints all of the colors of the paths of below and to the left on the five continents….
III.
FOR THESE REASONS, AND AS PART OF THE ACTS COMMEMMORATING THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF THE ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION, THE 15 YEARS SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR AGAINST OBLIVION, THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GOOD GOVERNMENT COUNCILS, AND THE THIRD YEAR OF THE OTHER CAMPAIGN AND THE ZEZTA INTERNAZIONAL, THE MEN, WOMEN, CHILDREN, AND ELDERLY OF THE EZLN CONVOKE ALL OF THE REBELLIOUS OF MEXICO AND THE WORLD TO THE:
FIRST GLOBAL FESTIVAL OF DIGNIFIED RAGE
WITH THE THEME OF:
ANOTHER WORLD, ANOTHER PATH: BELOW AND TO THE LEFT
TO BE CELEBRATED ON THE FOLLOWING PLACES AND DATES
THE OTHER MEXICO CITY, FEDERAL DISTRICT, December 26, 27, 28, and 29, 2008. IN LIENZO CHARRO OF THE ASSOCIATION LOS CHARROS REYES DE IZTAPALAPA, Frente Popular Francisco Villa Independiente-UNOPII, Avenue Guelatao # 50, Colonia Álvaro Obregón, Delegación Iztapalapa, close to the metro station Guelatao, where an exposition will be presented. AND IN THE HEADQUARTERS OF UNÍOS, Dr. Carmona y Valle street #32, colonia Doctores, close to the metro station Cuauhtemoc, where other activities will be held.
THE CITY OF SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, CHIAPAS, on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of January 2009 in CIDECI, located on the Camino Real de San Juan Chamula s/n, Colonia Nueva Maravilla.
SOME OF THE SUBTHEMES OF THE FESTIVAL WILL BE:
AN OTHER COUNTRYSIDE AN OTHER POLITICS
AN OTHER CITY AN OTHER SOCIAL MOVEMENT
AN OTHER COMMUNICATION AN OTHER HISTORY
AN OTHER ART AND AN OTHER CULTURE AN OTHER SEXUALITY
THE FESTIVAL “ANOTHER WORLD, ANOTHER PATH: BELOW AND TO THE LEFT” WILL HAVE THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERISTICS:
1. In Mexico City, a national and international exposition will be installed where every struggle, every experience, every rage, will have a space where it can set up and show its struggle and its courage. This way we can all see, hear, and know each other.
2. In zapatista territory, dignity and rage will become art and culture, music and song, because rebellion also dances. And with words, pain will become hope.
3. In San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, the word will go back and forth in order to give birth to new words and give strength and reason to rage.
4. The national and international groups, collectives, and organizations that participate in the festival will be only those who are invited to do so. To this end, the Sixth Commission of the EZLN has initiated consultations with political and social organizations, as well as with groups and collectives of anarchists, libertarians, alternative communication workers, human rights defenders, sexworkers, intellectuals, social activists, ex political prisoners, all adherents of the Sixth Declaration; and with groups, collectives, and organizations of other countries, all part of the Zezta Internazional. The criteria for invitations and participations will be made after these consultations.
5. For the roundtables, the EZLN will invite social organizers, thinkers, and leaders of anticapitalist projects from Mexico and around the world. The list of invitees will be released later.
6. More details about what we are thinking the festival of dignified rage could be will be made known at earliest convenience (that is, when we have an approximate idea of the problem we have gotten ourselves into).
That’s all for now.
LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ATENCO!
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
For the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command, of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico, September of 2008.
translated by el Kilombo Intergaláctico
----------------------------------------------
For more information see:
www.ezln.org.mx
AND/OR come along to the film screening (of Atenco: Break the Siege) and discussion this Wednesday night from 6.30pm at Happy, corner Tory and Vivian Sts, Wellington. entry by koha/donation all proceeds to the political prisoners of Atenco and their families.
For more info about the film screening, the Wellington Zapatista Support Group, and the Zapatistas in general, please visit:
www.floweroftheword.wordpress.com
Sixth Commission—Intergalactic Commission of the EZLN
Mexico
September 15 and 16 of 2008
To the adherents of the Sixth Declaration and the Other Campaign:
To the adherents of the Zezta Interazional:
To the People of Mexico:
To the Peoples of the World:
Compañeras and Compañeros:
Brother and Sisters:
Once again we send you our words.
This is what we see, what we are looking at.
This is what has come to our ears, to our brown heart.
I.
Above they intend to repeat history.
They want to impose on us once again their calendar of death, their geography of destruction.
When they are not trying to strip us of our roots, they are destroying them.
They steal our work, our strength.
They leave our world, our land, our water, and our treasures without people, without life.
The cities pursue and expel us.
The countryside both kills us and dies on us.
Lies become governments and dispossession is the weapon of their armies and police.
We are the illegal, the undocumented, the undesired of the world.
We are pursued.
Women, young people, children, the elderly die in death and die in life.
And there above they preach to us resignation, defeat, surrender, and abandonment.
Here below we are being left with nothing.
Except rage.
And dignity.
There is no ear for our pain, that is not like what we are.
We are no one.
We are alone, alone with our dignity and our rage.
Rage and dignity are our bridges, our languages.
We must listen to each other then, learn to know each other.
So that our courage and rage grows and becomes hope.
So that our dignity takes root again and births another world.
We have seen and heard.
Our voice is small to be the echo of that word, our gaze small for so much dignified rage.
The process of seeing each other, looking at each other, speaking to each other, listening to each other, is still lacking.
We are others, the other.
If this world does not have a place for us, then another world must be made.
With no tool other than our rage, no material other than our dignity.
We still must encounter each other more, know each other better.
What is missing is yet to come…
II.
Now, three years after the Sixth Declaration of the Lacondon Jungle, the EZLN has undertaken a collective reflection, nourished by the broad horizon that our compañeros of the Other Campaign in Mexico and in the Zezta Internazional across the world have given to us.
It is not little that we have seen and heard, sometimes directly, sometimes through the words and the gaze of others.
The rage that we felt and the dignity that we found was so great that we think now that we are smaller then we thought before.
In Mexico and on the five continents we have found what we intuited when we began our sixth step: there is another world, there is another path.
If the catastrophe that is coming can be avoided and humanity is to have another opportunity, it will because these others, below and to the left, not only resist, but are already drawing the profile of something else.
Something different than what is occurring above.
In the impossible geometry of political power, the fundamentalists are distributed evenly: the right becomes ultra-right and the institutional left becomes the impossible cultured right. Those who make up the progressive media complain that the fanatics of the mainstream press censure them, twist their words and slander their cause, but they at the same time censure, twist the words, slander, and silence any movement that hasn’t bowed down to the dictates of their ringleaders. And without shame they condemn and acquit to the rhythm of a senseless media rating. Fanatics on all sides fight over lies dressed as truths and crimes are measured by the media time that they occupy. But this is nothing other than a pale reflection of what is happening in politics.
Weariness of the cynicism and incompetence of the traditional political classes has been converted into rage. Sometimes this rage is oriented toward hoping for change in the same paths and places as always, and it is there immobilized by disillusionment or trampled by an arbitrary force. The unsettled and brutal north goes back to its old ways. When it is not sponsoring electoral fraud (like in Mexico), it is promoting, encouraging, and financing state coups (as attempted now in Bolivia and Venezuela). War continues to be its primary and favored form of international diplomacy. Iraq and Afghanistan burn, but, to the despair of those above, are not consumed.
The impositions of hegemony and homogeneity on a global scale find in nations, in regions, and in small locales, their witches’ apprentices that try for that impossible historic return to a past where fanaticism was law and dogma, science. Meanwhile, the governing political classes have found in the world of bright lights an adequate disguise to hide their full participation in organized crime.
Sickened by so much greed, the planet begins to pay the unpayable bill of its destruction. But “natural” disasters are also class issues and their devastation is felt most by those who have nothing and are no one. Faced with this, the stupidity of Power has no limits: millions and millions of dollars are dedicated to manufacturing new weapons and installing more military bases. The Power of capital does not worry about training teachers, doctors, engineers, but rather soldiers. It doesn’t prepare constructors, but rather destructors.
And those who opposed this are the pursued, incarcerated, murdered.
In Mexico, farmers who have defended their land are in prison (San Salvador Atenco); in Italy those who opposed the installation of military bases are pursued and treated as terrorists; in the France of “liberty, equality, and fraternity,” humans are only free, equal, and brothers if their papers say so; in Greece being young is a vice that must be eradicated; again in Mexico, but now in that city of the same name, young people are criminalized and murdered and nothing is done because it is not on the agenda that those above dictate. Meanwhile, a legitimate referendum is converted into a shameful way for and assassin-governor to wash his hands of a situation. In the Spain of the modern European Union, publications are closed and a language, Euskera, is criminalized—they think that by killing the word they can kill those who speak it; in that Asia that is so close, the peasant demands are answered with armored injustices; in that arrogant American Union, born in the blood of migrants, the “other colors” that work there are pursued and killed; in the long wound that is Latin America, the brown blood that sustains it is despised and humiliated; in the rebellious Caribbean, a people, the Cuban people, are forced to live under an imperial embargo that is nothing other than a punishment without crime.
And in all of the corners of the world’s geography, and in all of the days of its calendars, those that work, those that make things run, are plundered, despised, exploited, and repressed.
But sometimes, many times, as many times as a smile sets it off again, rage looks for its own paths, new paths, other paths. And the “no” that these multiple rages raise now not only resists, but begins to propose, to become.
Since our appearance in public, now almost 15 years ago, it has been our goal to be a bridge on which the many rebellions in the world can walk back and forth.
Sometimes we have achieved this, sometimes we haven’t.
Now we see and we feel not only the rebellious resistance that, as sister and comrade, stays at our side and encourages our steps.
Now there is something that before wasn’t there, or that we weren’t able to see before.
There is a creative rage.
A rage that paints all of the colors of the paths of below and to the left on the five continents….
III.
FOR THESE REASONS, AND AS PART OF THE ACTS COMMEMMORATING THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF THE ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION, THE 15 YEARS SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR AGAINST OBLIVION, THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GOOD GOVERNMENT COUNCILS, AND THE THIRD YEAR OF THE OTHER CAMPAIGN AND THE ZEZTA INTERNAZIONAL, THE MEN, WOMEN, CHILDREN, AND ELDERLY OF THE EZLN CONVOKE ALL OF THE REBELLIOUS OF MEXICO AND THE WORLD TO THE:
FIRST GLOBAL FESTIVAL OF DIGNIFIED RAGE
WITH THE THEME OF:
ANOTHER WORLD, ANOTHER PATH: BELOW AND TO THE LEFT
TO BE CELEBRATED ON THE FOLLOWING PLACES AND DATES
THE OTHER MEXICO CITY, FEDERAL DISTRICT, December 26, 27, 28, and 29, 2008. IN LIENZO CHARRO OF THE ASSOCIATION LOS CHARROS REYES DE IZTAPALAPA, Frente Popular Francisco Villa Independiente-UNOPII, Avenue Guelatao # 50, Colonia Álvaro Obregón, Delegación Iztapalapa, close to the metro station Guelatao, where an exposition will be presented. AND IN THE HEADQUARTERS OF UNÍOS, Dr. Carmona y Valle street #32, colonia Doctores, close to the metro station Cuauhtemoc, where other activities will be held.
THE CITY OF SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, CHIAPAS, on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of January 2009 in CIDECI, located on the Camino Real de San Juan Chamula s/n, Colonia Nueva Maravilla.
SOME OF THE SUBTHEMES OF THE FESTIVAL WILL BE:
AN OTHER COUNTRYSIDE AN OTHER POLITICS
AN OTHER CITY AN OTHER SOCIAL MOVEMENT
AN OTHER COMMUNICATION AN OTHER HISTORY
AN OTHER ART AND AN OTHER CULTURE AN OTHER SEXUALITY
THE FESTIVAL “ANOTHER WORLD, ANOTHER PATH: BELOW AND TO THE LEFT” WILL HAVE THE FOLLOWING CHARACTERISTICS:
1. In Mexico City, a national and international exposition will be installed where every struggle, every experience, every rage, will have a space where it can set up and show its struggle and its courage. This way we can all see, hear, and know each other.
2. In zapatista territory, dignity and rage will become art and culture, music and song, because rebellion also dances. And with words, pain will become hope.
3. In San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, the word will go back and forth in order to give birth to new words and give strength and reason to rage.
4. The national and international groups, collectives, and organizations that participate in the festival will be only those who are invited to do so. To this end, the Sixth Commission of the EZLN has initiated consultations with political and social organizations, as well as with groups and collectives of anarchists, libertarians, alternative communication workers, human rights defenders, sexworkers, intellectuals, social activists, ex political prisoners, all adherents of the Sixth Declaration; and with groups, collectives, and organizations of other countries, all part of the Zezta Internazional. The criteria for invitations and participations will be made after these consultations.
5. For the roundtables, the EZLN will invite social organizers, thinkers, and leaders of anticapitalist projects from Mexico and around the world. The list of invitees will be released later.
6. More details about what we are thinking the festival of dignified rage could be will be made known at earliest convenience (that is, when we have an approximate idea of the problem we have gotten ourselves into).
That’s all for now.
LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ATENCO!
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
For the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command, of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico, September of 2008.
translated by el Kilombo Intergaláctico
----------------------------------------------
For more information see:
www.ezln.org.mx
AND/OR come along to the film screening (of Atenco: Break the Siege) and discussion this Wednesday night from 6.30pm at Happy, corner Tory and Vivian Sts, Wellington. entry by koha/donation all proceeds to the political prisoners of Atenco and their families.
For more info about the film screening, the Wellington Zapatista Support Group, and the Zapatistas in general, please visit:
www.floweroftheword.wordpress.com
1/19/08
EZLN - Our Word is our Weapon
Montage of pictures from the Zapatista struggle in Chiapas, Mexico, with remarks read by Subcomandante Marcos in English.
10/17/07
“They’ve Relegated Us to Authentic Concentration Camps:” Indigenous Woman from British Columbia
The Indigenous Peoples’ Encuentro Began with a Strong United States Presence
By Raúl Romero and Juan Trujillo
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
October 16, 2007
Vicam, Sonora, Mexico, October 11-12, 2007 - The First American Indigenous Peoples’ Encuentro, in the Yaqui tribe’s territory, began yesterday morning—after a traditional ritual celebrated in the ceremonial center of this community—with the participation of a little more than 547 delegates of native peoples and 800 observers, amongst whom were journalists and national and international civil society members who are adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle.
The ritual began in the sacred heart, were the Yaqui governors speak in their language, communicate with each other, and make decisions. In the ceremony a member of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI in its Spanish initials) and Subcomandante Marcos, representing the Sixth Commission and the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN in its Spanish initials) were also present. While some listen, others observe the Encuentro of the delegations of those peoples in resistance that in the coming days will speak and listen to each other.
During the days leading up to the Encuentro, the EZLN delegation’s large presence and participation was expected, composed of the comandantes David and Zebedeo, the comandanta Miriam, Lupita (daughter of Comandante Hortensia), and Subcomandante Marcos. However, violent harassment—which ended with the rebel group being held up for 40 minutes by the Mexican Federal Army on a Sinaloa highway while the delegation was making its way to Vicam—precipitated the comandantes’ retreat to Chiapas for security reasons. The delegation explained this in a letter:
 Photos: D.R. 2007 Raúl Romero |
The letter is signed by Comandante Guillermo, Comandantas Susana, Miriam, Hortensia, Florencia, Insurgente Elena, Lupita, and third generation Toñita. It was written after the Sixth Commission decided to not send more delegates due to the violent harassment they were subjected to by the Federal Army.
Meanwhile, Subcomandante Marcos greeted all of the representatives of the native peoples and observers present in this encuentro, which “was reached despite everything opposing it: distances, language, borders, governments, lies, persecutions, deaths, and the false divisions they impose on us from above.”
He also said that the native peoples of the American continent, who have resisted for 515 years, will tell their stories of “pain and dignified rebellion” in this encuentro, as well as sharing “experience and wisdom” and naming the demands for justice and liberty that are shared by all of the indigenous nations who, since the first war of conquest, have been condemned to oblivion. With this dialogue “the continent will recover its voice,” continued Marcos, “that today they silence with fire, oblivion, and noise.”
The rebel leader ended his participation communicating the Zapatistas’ decision to not participate in this event. Their pains, dreams, and hopes would be told by the voice of other peoples because the situation of the indigenous nations in all of America is similar: “the oblivion, the misery, and the resistance extends over all of the continent.”
 |
He also said that after 515 years of resistance, in Vicam they will begin to unite forces to construct a “new project of life” for humanity and nature, as well as against the “neoliberal-capistalists’ programs of death and destruction.”
The Word of the North American Land
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The Mik’maq people spoke through their spokesperson about their history and reality: “I come from strong people. We came from the west coast were we have suffered a lot of pain.” He explained that they have resisted colonization, genocide, and globalization. And as a consequence of those phenomena they’ve begun to take their culture, land, and natural resources from them: “We have lost our culture and our language; we have to put a stop to this. We are fighting many battles. The urgency of the warrior spirit is important among our people in order to recognize responsibility. We are waking up, we have the opportunity to be part of a warrior alliance that is growing and that’s why we are here.”
The Tohono O’tham people from the United States explained that “our consciousness is being stolen… there are seeds that have been robbed.” They said that the Mar de Cortés (also known as the Gulf of California) was where their ancestors nourished themselves with fish. But now that the government and the military doesn’t permit them access to the area. Therefore, they proposed that the indigenous struggle seeks “to protect the world, the territory, and the communities.”
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The delegate from the Lakota people of the United States recognized that the struggle of Mexican indigenous peoples is “very similar to ours, because we struggle for life.” He remembered that this began in 1876 when “we were separated,” and from then on not even their religious centers have been respected. At the end of this messenger’s speech he strongly declared: “It won’t be forgotten who we are and where we came from.”
Silvia, another representative from this same people, denounced that “the women have suffered sexual abuses in our communities.”
The Aboloni people from the Achinawi nation, which is located in the state of California, denounced that 90% of their population had been exterminated by the so-called “Gold Fever,” because “they contaminated our waters with mercury and murdered our people, which (in reality) was a government policy…our women were raped and they stripped us of our land.” They strongly criticized the “energy colonization” that the communities suffer as a result of hydroelectric dam construction.
They also denounced that there are about “450 sacred ceremonial sites that are being threatened by construction. And in the University [of California] Berkeley, there are 14,000 ancestors’ remains, which makes up the second largest collection of bones in the world, and this is also being threatened by a museum that took one of the ancestors.” They equally criticized white anthropologists.
In the name of the Mohawk people, a nation located in upstate New York, Montreal, and Toronto, the messenger Ketenia explained that “Our lands are close to the Hudson River. We have been struggling against the corporations that want to steal our land from us. We are one of the biggest organizations. Our land is rich in minerals and corporations.” She explained that in 2005 the state of New York wanted their lands to build a casino, so they had to intervene.
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The delegate from the Grand River nation, located in Canada, said that “before they came to our lands we were five nations, but we had conflicts and we were self-destructing. But one of us was born and came to bring us a message about how to live and govern ourselves. We’ve succeeded in recovering our identity.”
We Are divided
“In February 2006 we recovered land were they wanted to construct a housing development. The police came, but we managed to make an encampment that in the beginning looked pretty small.” She reminded the participants that one form of struggle is to impose “the law of peace,” which isn’t just a flag, but an attitude.
She added that one of the most important struggles is the fight against the business projects which, according to her, produce unjust arrests, which is why indigenous culture and identity is lost, because they become “Canadians” or “United States citizens” in order to not be legally persecuted. “For us to rise up means to have judicial problems and to go to jail,” she said in closing.
Indigenous Women’s Resistance
Within the framework of these accounts, the situation of the Quexan Nation was emphasized. The Quexan Nation is a community in Canada which is occupied by the English and is now known as “British Columbia.” The delegate began by saying that it is a lie that this country is peaceful, because for her community war is a daily matter, especially for women. She explained that the first form of domination exercised by the English was to displace the women in the different roles that they originally had, because “the women, just like in other cultures, were in charge of maintaining the land and the culture (...). They were the protectors, those who cared for the children.” For this reason, she continued, the colonizers saw the women as the first obstacle and began to implement a series of laws that limited their rights and participation. This is how in 1876 the “Indigenous Act” was decreed in which it was noted that “the indigenous man is who commands and who has the final word, so ending a matriarchal system and giving way to a patriarchal one.”
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The Quexan woman ended her participation by calling all indigenous women to unite and demand better justice, and that they imagine new forms of organization that provide them with better security, because “they can’t hope for anything from the bad governments.”
During the morning of October 12, the participation of the North American delegations ended and in the afternoon the messengers from the Latin American, Caribbean, and Mexican indigenous peoples were introduced.
Translated by Kristin Bricker. Originally published in Spanish October 14.
http://www.narconews.com/Issue47/article2834.html9/25/07
Communique from the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee
General Command of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation
Mexico --- September22, 2007
---- To the People of Mexico: ---- To the adherents of the Sixth
Declaration and the Other Campaign: ---- Brothers and Sisters: ---- Compaсeros
and Compaсeras: The EZLN communicates to you the following reflections and
decisions we have made:
--- I. Reflections
--- Chiapas ---- At this time, thestate government of Chiapas and the federal government (of the PRD-PRI and the PAN respectively) are waging a campaign against the Zapatista communities. "Official" evictions, paramilitary attacks, invasions sponsored by officials, persecutions and threats, have become once again part of the surroundings of the indigenous communities, the Zapatistas, who have set upon constructing their own destiny and improving their living conditions, always without losing their indigenous identity.
Just like in the worst times of the PRI, of Absalon Castellanos and "Croquetas" Albores Guillen, the PRD government of Chiapas is attacking the poor and needy, while catering to and benefiting the powerful. Just like any right-wing government, that of Juan Sabines in Chiapas continues the repression and dispossession, but now under a left-wing flag and with the double sponsorship of the two "presidencies" of our country: that of Felipe Calderon (of the PAN) and that of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (of the PRD, and, above all, of himself).
In contrast to other occasions, these aggressions have been met by the silence
of those voices that before rose to protest and to demand justice, and that now
fall silent, perhaps so that we are not reminded that they applauded AMLO's
support for Juan Sabines and his recent call to support PRD candidates for the
municipal presidencies and the local congress.
In this way, what we have been saying for the last 3 years has been confirmed:
above there are no principals nor convictions; there are, rather, ambitions and
conveniences. And another thing we said has also been confirmed: the institutional left is nothing more than a shameless right, a left rubber-stamped by the right.
The same crime has a different judgment: if the repression is carried out by the PAN, then one must mobilize and detain fascism; if its is carried out by the PRD, then one must lose one's memory, hush, do ridiculous juggling acts, or applaud. In Chiapas there is a real step backward in government policy. This time it does not carry the shield of the confessional right, but rather of the "modern" and "legitimate" left.
We will do what we have to do: resist. It does not matter if we have to do it alone. It wouldn't be the first time; before we became coffee-shop kitsch, alone indeed we were.
Mexico
There are many aspects upon which to reflect, voice opinions, and take positions. This will be done another time another way. For now we just want to say that the determining factor in our country is not the supposed "neo-independence" of the legislative powers with respect to the media. Above, politics is the art of simulation, and the real agenda of organized crime (that is, of the government) is not demonstrated in the declarations of politicians.
What we want to say now has to do with the double effort, civil and pacific, which we are currently undertaking as Zapatistas: the Encounter of Indigenous Peoples of America, and the Other Campaign.
The first represents an event without precedent. Outside the official national and international circles, delegates and representatives of the original peoples of the American continent will come together to meet each other directly, to see and listen to each other. That is, to begin to respect each other. The fact that the encounter will take place in the besieged territory of the Yaqui Tribe in the Mexican State of Sonora symbolizes our permanent struggle to make ourselves visible and give ourselves the voice and ear that those above deny us.
The days 11, 12, 13, and 14 of this October, in Vicam, Sonora, Mexico, we will be represented as Indian Peoples, to whose brown blood we have added the color of the Zapatistas.
With regard to the Other Campaign, it represents for us the only serious effort to construct a national movement from below and to the left.
It is interesting that those who before criticized this effort now use the same words that we have used to refer to the political class, to the necessity to listen and to organize from below.
As a sign of our commitment to those who are now our compaсeros and compaсeras, in addition to carrying out encounters in our own territory so that they may know us better, we regularly send one or more delegations of the EZLN out to visit the places where others struggle in order to know them better.
Thus we made a first journey throughout all of our country, and now that we are making an outline of a national plan of struggle, with the feeling and thinking of all those who form the Other Campaign, we have made a second visit to the north of Mexico.
As we have done on other occasions, each time that we leave our territory to visit other parts of our country, the EZLN has addressed the existing political-military organizations in order to respectfully ask them not to carry out actions that could endanger the life and liberty of our delegates in their civil and peaceful work.
In every case, we have received the attention and respect of those revolutionary organizations, and in some cases we have received their sympathy for our political initiatives.
These are organizations with which we maintain differences in formation, structure, method, analysis, and history, but we recognize and respect them. Their existence and persistence, like ours, is due to the grave living conditions of our people and the lack of spaces for political participation and struggle. Currently, one of these revolutionary organizations, the Popular
Revolutionary Army (EPR), is carrying out a political-military campaign to demand that two of their companions in struggle be returned alive.
The demand for the appearance of these disappeared is not only legitimate, it is also a denunciation of the current dirty war that that adoring lover of military uniform, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, is re-editing for the present.
As Zapatistas we think that we can not ask of the Popular Revolutionary Army that they permit our delegation to travel through the territories where it has presence or influence and to declare a ceasefire and suspend the campaign that it maintains with the just and legitimate demand for the presentation of its disappeared.
On the other hand, the nervous stupidity of those in charge of the official repression has become more acute with the recent actions of the EPR, and it could be, if the leadership of the Popular Revolutionary Army was to generously agree to a ceasefire so that our delegation could carry out its work, that the military government of Felipe Calderon would launch an attack and later
PRETENDER ADJUDICARLE LA AUTORНA AL EPR ARGUMENTANDO DISPUTAS INEXISTENTES ... arguing inexistent disputes.
Not long ago a government official said that the disappearances denounced by the EPR were not carried out by the government, but rather by another revolutionary organization. But it is well-known that it was indeed the government that detained them and has them still, and thus it is the government that must return them alive.
II. Decisions.
Compaсeros and Compaсeras:
For these reasons that we have here tried to synthesize as much as possible, we have decided the following:
First. The Sixth Commission of the EZLN will suspend the journey of the second phase of the Other Campaign to the states and regions of the center and south of the country that it had announced for the months of October, November, and December of 2007. In its place, we will carry out civil and peaceful actions in defense of the Zapatista Communities.
Second. The EZLN will comply with our commitment, as part of the organizing commission, to attend the Encounter of the Indigenous Peoples of America. A delegation of Zapatista leadership will travel precisely for that purpose to the territory of the Yaqui Tribe in Vicam, Sonora, Mexico, October 11, 12, 13, and 14, to be present in this important meeting, key for the future struggle of the original peoples of our continent.
Liberty and Justice for Atenco!
Liberty and Justice for Oaxaca!
For the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command of the
Zapatista Army for National Liberation.
Sixth Commission of the EZLN
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico, September of 2007
--- Chiapas ---- At this time, thestate government of Chiapas and the federal government (of the PRD-PRI and the PAN respectively) are waging a campaign against the Zapatista communities. "Official" evictions, paramilitary attacks, invasions sponsored by officials, persecutions and threats, have become once again part of the surroundings of the indigenous communities, the Zapatistas, who have set upon constructing their own destiny and improving their living conditions, always without losing their indigenous identity.
Just like in the worst times of the PRI, of Absalon Castellanos and "Croquetas" Albores Guillen, the PRD government of Chiapas is attacking the poor and needy, while catering to and benefiting the powerful. Just like any right-wing government, that of Juan Sabines in Chiapas continues the repression and dispossession, but now under a left-wing flag and with the double sponsorship of the two "presidencies" of our country: that of Felipe Calderon (of the PAN) and that of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (of the PRD, and, above all, of himself).
In contrast to other occasions, these aggressions have been met by the silence
of those voices that before rose to protest and to demand justice, and that now
fall silent, perhaps so that we are not reminded that they applauded AMLO's
support for Juan Sabines and his recent call to support PRD candidates for the
municipal presidencies and the local congress.
In this way, what we have been saying for the last 3 years has been confirmed:
above there are no principals nor convictions; there are, rather, ambitions and
conveniences. And another thing we said has also been confirmed: the institutional left is nothing more than a shameless right, a left rubber-stamped by the right.
The same crime has a different judgment: if the repression is carried out by the PAN, then one must mobilize and detain fascism; if its is carried out by the PRD, then one must lose one's memory, hush, do ridiculous juggling acts, or applaud. In Chiapas there is a real step backward in government policy. This time it does not carry the shield of the confessional right, but rather of the "modern" and "legitimate" left.
We will do what we have to do: resist. It does not matter if we have to do it alone. It wouldn't be the first time; before we became coffee-shop kitsch, alone indeed we were.
Mexico
There are many aspects upon which to reflect, voice opinions, and take positions. This will be done another time another way. For now we just want to say that the determining factor in our country is not the supposed "neo-independence" of the legislative powers with respect to the media. Above, politics is the art of simulation, and the real agenda of organized crime (that is, of the government) is not demonstrated in the declarations of politicians.
What we want to say now has to do with the double effort, civil and pacific, which we are currently undertaking as Zapatistas: the Encounter of Indigenous Peoples of America, and the Other Campaign.
The first represents an event without precedent. Outside the official national and international circles, delegates and representatives of the original peoples of the American continent will come together to meet each other directly, to see and listen to each other. That is, to begin to respect each other. The fact that the encounter will take place in the besieged territory of the Yaqui Tribe in the Mexican State of Sonora symbolizes our permanent struggle to make ourselves visible and give ourselves the voice and ear that those above deny us.
The days 11, 12, 13, and 14 of this October, in Vicam, Sonora, Mexico, we will be represented as Indian Peoples, to whose brown blood we have added the color of the Zapatistas.
With regard to the Other Campaign, it represents for us the only serious effort to construct a national movement from below and to the left.
It is interesting that those who before criticized this effort now use the same words that we have used to refer to the political class, to the necessity to listen and to organize from below.
As a sign of our commitment to those who are now our compaсeros and compaсeras, in addition to carrying out encounters in our own territory so that they may know us better, we regularly send one or more delegations of the EZLN out to visit the places where others struggle in order to know them better.
Thus we made a first journey throughout all of our country, and now that we are making an outline of a national plan of struggle, with the feeling and thinking of all those who form the Other Campaign, we have made a second visit to the north of Mexico.
As we have done on other occasions, each time that we leave our territory to visit other parts of our country, the EZLN has addressed the existing political-military organizations in order to respectfully ask them not to carry out actions that could endanger the life and liberty of our delegates in their civil and peaceful work.
In every case, we have received the attention and respect of those revolutionary organizations, and in some cases we have received their sympathy for our political initiatives.
These are organizations with which we maintain differences in formation, structure, method, analysis, and history, but we recognize and respect them. Their existence and persistence, like ours, is due to the grave living conditions of our people and the lack of spaces for political participation and struggle. Currently, one of these revolutionary organizations, the Popular
Revolutionary Army (EPR), is carrying out a political-military campaign to demand that two of their companions in struggle be returned alive.
The demand for the appearance of these disappeared is not only legitimate, it is also a denunciation of the current dirty war that that adoring lover of military uniform, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, is re-editing for the present.
As Zapatistas we think that we can not ask of the Popular Revolutionary Army that they permit our delegation to travel through the territories where it has presence or influence and to declare a ceasefire and suspend the campaign that it maintains with the just and legitimate demand for the presentation of its disappeared.
On the other hand, the nervous stupidity of those in charge of the official repression has become more acute with the recent actions of the EPR, and it could be, if the leadership of the Popular Revolutionary Army was to generously agree to a ceasefire so that our delegation could carry out its work, that the military government of Felipe Calderon would launch an attack and later
PRETENDER ADJUDICARLE LA AUTORНA AL EPR ARGUMENTANDO DISPUTAS INEXISTENTES ... arguing inexistent disputes.
Not long ago a government official said that the disappearances denounced by the EPR were not carried out by the government, but rather by another revolutionary organization. But it is well-known that it was indeed the government that detained them and has them still, and thus it is the government that must return them alive.
II. Decisions.
Compaсeros and Compaсeras:
For these reasons that we have here tried to synthesize as much as possible, we have decided the following:
First. The Sixth Commission of the EZLN will suspend the journey of the second phase of the Other Campaign to the states and regions of the center and south of the country that it had announced for the months of October, November, and December of 2007. In its place, we will carry out civil and peaceful actions in defense of the Zapatista Communities.
Second. The EZLN will comply with our commitment, as part of the organizing commission, to attend the Encounter of the Indigenous Peoples of America. A delegation of Zapatista leadership will travel precisely for that purpose to the territory of the Yaqui Tribe in Vicam, Sonora, Mexico, October 11, 12, 13, and 14, to be present in this important meeting, key for the future struggle of the original peoples of our continent.
Liberty and Justice for Atenco!
Liberty and Justice for Oaxaca!
For the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command of the
Zapatista Army for National Liberation.
Sixth Commission of the EZLN
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico, September of 2007
4/8/07
Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) Comunique
http://www.tierradentro.org.mx/?q=node/120
Comunique’ read by Comandanta Kelly, Sixth
Commission, Zapatista Army of
National Liberation (EZLN).
Sisters and Brothers of Mexico and the World:
Here in Chiapas we face a new offensive against the indigenous zapatista
communities, carried out by paramilitary groups affiliated with the PRI and
with the PRD, supported by the State government (PRD), the Federalgovernment
(PAN), by their land and agrarian offices, by the ex-landowners—who originally
stole their lands from our peoples—and by themilitary and police forces, in a
clear conspiracy to evict the zapatista communities from the land and
territories that were recovered with heart,blood, and death in 1994.
Here in Chiapas, though the struggle of thousands of compa~eras andcompa~eros,
members of zapatista militias and of our bases of support, we carried out a
genuine agrarian reform and agrarian revolution, based onthe Revolutionary
Agrarian Law of 1993. Thanks to this revolutionary recovery of land and
territories, today there are thousands of zapatista and non-zapatista families—who
before 1994 had been evicted from their land, their lives and their autonomy—who
now have land to work, land tobuild community, land for a better future. For
indigenous, peasant and other rural peoples, land and territory are more than
just sources of workand food; they also signify culture, community, history,
ancestors, dreams, future, life, and Mother Earth.
But today in Chiapas, just as in many other parts of Mexico and the world, Power
and neoliberalism are imposing a true counter-agrarian reform and counter-revolution.
Just like in Mexico and many other countries where agrarian reforms have been
carried out—whether from above, by revolutionary governments, or from below, by
social movements, or wherever
peoples defend their territories against privatization—they try to evict
communities from their lands and recovered territories, with their armies,
paramilitaries, privatizing laws, judiciaries and agrarian authorities,
political parties, false conservationist and environmental discourses,
biopiracy and GMO contamination, among other methods, all with the objective of
turning land, territories, biodiversity and life itself into mere commodities.
Here in Chiapas, as in the entire world, wherever
indigenous peoples,peasants, artisanal fisherfolk and other rural peoples
defend their right to land and territory, or wherever landless peoples struggle
for land and territory, we are under attack from Power.
In the whole world, it is the same story. Our struggle is your struggle. Gathered
here today in San Cristo’bal de las Casas, this 25 of March of 2007, we, the
Sixth Commission of the EZLN, with local, national and international members of
the Other Campaign, and national and international sister organizations, call
on and invite all organizations in Mexico and the world, to help us launch the
Global Campaign for the Defense of Indigenous, Peasant and Autonomous Land and
Territories in Chiapas, Mexico and the World.
We call for a global campaign of mutual support between rural peoples and other
peoples who support our rights and our struggles for the right to life and
dignity, and we call on all of us to join forces with each other, for example
mutual support between the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform of La Via
Campesina and this Global Campaign for the Defense of
Indigenous, Peasant and Autonomous Land
and Territories in Chiapas, Mexico and the World.
Sisters and brothers, we invite you to add your local, national and international
names to this campaign, and to take on the commitment to carry out joint actions
of mutual solidarity.
The struggle for the defense of land and territory is the struggle for life and
dignity.
Behind us-you, stand you-we. [”Detras de nosotros, estamos ustedes.”]
3/23/07
In Magdalena, Subcomandante Marcos Speaks of the Border
: In Magdalena, Subcomandante Marcos Speaks of the Border
Taipo wrote:
"In the story we are telling -or that we were sent to tell you- the
earth protected us after the Spanish invasion, and allowed us to
survive and resist the North American invasion, and we continued to
live. And then came the invasion of money, or Big Capital. And the
earth allowed us to survive, but now it is at the point of death
precisely because of the people 'up above'.
If you think that they will be contented to see us poor, without
schools, without medicine, you are mistaken: they want us to disappear
completely." - Subcomandante Marcos
That is something that many Maori are failing to comprehend.
Systematic assimilation is thorough, persistant and ongoing. Today it
is not brutal and up front and personal as is with the peoples of the
Chiapas, nevertheless it was at one time, and is still there in much
more subtle forms, methods and strategies.
The greatest tool working for the system is actually the complicency
of many of our own people.
We are fast coming to a cultural precipice, a saturation point from a
mix of the Treaty settlement process, academic revisionism of history
and culture, radical educational, health and legislative assimilation
policies and the compounding affect these subtle yet determined
routing techniques are having particularly on the majority of Maori
who are living out their lives in urban areas in this country and
Australia.
I think some where along the way, somewhere between the transition of
the rifle musket to the pen, somewhere shortly after that we let our
guards down. Somewhere in the period just following the passing of
Eva, of Matiu, and the passing of our belief that one day we will be
free, that one day we will at least have an autonomous area which we
can live as free people, we began to believe the colonial, and
capitalist lies that we are indeed already free, free to determine
ourselves within this corporate dungeon, this haven for vulture
capitalists, as the greate subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatistas put
it, Big Capital.
If for a moment I can indulge everyone is a little history:
- that from first invasion of the anglo-saxons to conquer and
assimilate all of old Briton, till the official formation of the
United Kingdom was 1700 years...
- The attempted conquest of Ireland by the peoples of Britain began in
1169 and is still going on today...we bare witness to a phase of the
struggle of the Irish people for their liberation from invaders, a
fight that has persisted in wax and wane for the good part of 1800 years.
These are lessons and a stark reminders to us to not be swept away by
what I would term, the grand illusion, that neo-serfdom status offered
to us in a gold and silver lined kete mostly by Maori who have become
accustomed to, and spiritually and mentally recruited into the system.
This system, this misdirection, in this small segment of the war for
our complete annihilation is the greatest tool in the kete of the
wheiwheia kaiwhakamate.
The war for our 'complete disappearance' began a few seconds after the
arrival of the capitalist expansionists, the sealers, whalers and land
barons, it began long before the ink first began to flow onto the
parchment that we hold to dearly called the Tiriti o Waitangi and we
need to be constantly reminded that it has in no way ended or is even
near ending.
This spell of sorts, of the queen of the snowflakes that holds the
belief in our minds that we are to be content to be Maori with just
the components of the expression of our culture, haka, reo, toi,
wairuatanga etc etc, become fluent in those components and you will be
free.
The stark reality is that we are 10% of the way into the war of either
our liberation or total destruction. In order for Maori to move to the
next level, to begin breaking this pseudo-spell, if we so desire it,
then many of the ideas we have formulated to 'be' Maori within this
western capitalist paradym are going to have to be re-evaluated. New
ideas need formulation based around the concept-reality of the
formation of an autonomous state/states, first option to initiate
within the zone of one of the more 'geographically sound' rohe potae.
Never have we ever faced such a determined campaign of destruction.
Look back at any record of war, where has there been one that lasted
as long as this one will last. We do not have a corporate memory of
any war lasting more than a few generations.
Kotahitanga? For a short while in order to achieve the objective of
the guarantee of our political autonomy and our mana motuhake.
The tuakana, the Irish, the Zapatistas, the Cubans, the southern
Lebanese, those indigenous peoples willing to pay the ultimate price
for their freedom, and last but not least, our tupuna who saw the
eventuation of this war, and saw that the battle would be long and
arduous, yet were willing to pay the ultimate price for us and for
those to come after us.
The cost? Everything but your soul.
He mihi kauana ki a koutou maa oo Mehiko, Amerika ki te tonga, ki nga
tuakana, ara ko Subcomandante Marcos tera, ko Ernesto Guevara tera, ki
to tatou tupuna hoki kua whakairotia hoki te ara tika, te ara pono
hoki ma tatou onaianei, o te wa ka haramai.
Kaati noa ra kaore e mau te rongo, me mau tonu ra tatou ki te kawau
maro, a, kaua e ware, ka whawhai tonu tatou mo ake tonu atu e!
Taipo wrote:
"In the story we are telling -or that we were sent to tell you- the
earth protected us after the Spanish invasion, and allowed us to
survive and resist the North American invasion, and we continued to
live. And then came the invasion of money, or Big Capital. And the
earth allowed us to survive, but now it is at the point of death
precisely because of the people 'up above'.
If you think that they will be contented to see us poor, without
schools, without medicine, you are mistaken: they want us to disappear
completely." - Subcomandante Marcos
That is something that many Maori are failing to comprehend.
Systematic assimilation is thorough, persistant and ongoing. Today it
is not brutal and up front and personal as is with the peoples of the
Chiapas, nevertheless it was at one time, and is still there in much
more subtle forms, methods and strategies.
The greatest tool working for the system is actually the complicency
of many of our own people.
We are fast coming to a cultural precipice, a saturation point from a
mix of the Treaty settlement process, academic revisionism of history
and culture, radical educational, health and legislative assimilation
policies and the compounding affect these subtle yet determined
routing techniques are having particularly on the majority of Maori
who are living out their lives in urban areas in this country and
Australia.
I think some where along the way, somewhere between the transition of
the rifle musket to the pen, somewhere shortly after that we let our
guards down. Somewhere in the period just following the passing of
Eva, of Matiu, and the passing of our belief that one day we will be
free, that one day we will at least have an autonomous area which we
can live as free people, we began to believe the colonial, and
capitalist lies that we are indeed already free, free to determine
ourselves within this corporate dungeon, this haven for vulture
capitalists, as the greate subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatistas put
it, Big Capital.
If for a moment I can indulge everyone is a little history:
- that from first invasion of the anglo-saxons to conquer and
assimilate all of old Briton, till the official formation of the
United Kingdom was 1700 years...
- The attempted conquest of Ireland by the peoples of Britain began in
1169 and is still going on today...we bare witness to a phase of the
struggle of the Irish people for their liberation from invaders, a
fight that has persisted in wax and wane for the good part of 1800 years.
These are lessons and a stark reminders to us to not be swept away by
what I would term, the grand illusion, that neo-serfdom status offered
to us in a gold and silver lined kete mostly by Maori who have become
accustomed to, and spiritually and mentally recruited into the system.
This system, this misdirection, in this small segment of the war for
our complete annihilation is the greatest tool in the kete of the
wheiwheia kaiwhakamate.
The war for our 'complete disappearance' began a few seconds after the
arrival of the capitalist expansionists, the sealers, whalers and land
barons, it began long before the ink first began to flow onto the
parchment that we hold to dearly called the Tiriti o Waitangi and we
need to be constantly reminded that it has in no way ended or is even
near ending.
This spell of sorts, of the queen of the snowflakes that holds the
belief in our minds that we are to be content to be Maori with just
the components of the expression of our culture, haka, reo, toi,
wairuatanga etc etc, become fluent in those components and you will be
free.
The stark reality is that we are 10% of the way into the war of either
our liberation or total destruction. In order for Maori to move to the
next level, to begin breaking this pseudo-spell, if we so desire it,
then many of the ideas we have formulated to 'be' Maori within this
western capitalist paradym are going to have to be re-evaluated. New
ideas need formulation based around the concept-reality of the
formation of an autonomous state/states, first option to initiate
within the zone of one of the more 'geographically sound' rohe potae.
Never have we ever faced such a determined campaign of destruction.
Look back at any record of war, where has there been one that lasted
as long as this one will last. We do not have a corporate memory of
any war lasting more than a few generations.
Kotahitanga? For a short while in order to achieve the objective of
the guarantee of our political autonomy and our mana motuhake.
The tuakana, the Irish, the Zapatistas, the Cubans, the southern
Lebanese, those indigenous peoples willing to pay the ultimate price
for their freedom, and last but not least, our tupuna who saw the
eventuation of this war, and saw that the battle would be long and
arduous, yet were willing to pay the ultimate price for us and for
those to come after us.
The cost? Everything but your soul.
He mihi kauana ki a koutou maa oo Mehiko, Amerika ki te tonga, ki nga
tuakana, ara ko Subcomandante Marcos tera, ko Ernesto Guevara tera, ki
to tatou tupuna hoki kua whakairotia hoki te ara tika, te ara pono
hoki ma tatou onaianei, o te wa ka haramai.
Kaati noa ra kaore e mau te rongo, me mau tonu ra tatou ki te kawau
maro, a, kaua e ware, ka whawhai tonu tatou mo ake tonu atu e!
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