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THEM AND US VII – The Smallest Ones 4 – The Compañeras take the “Cargo”
THEM AND US VII.
The Smallest Ones 4.
The Compañeras: Taking on the cargo* *Cargo, a duty or task, refers here to a designated position of responsibility and authority.
February 2013
There is nothing more subversive and irreverent as a group of women from below saying, to others and to themselves: “we.”
Don Durito
Note: Below are more fragments from the Zapatista women’s ‘sharing,’ only now the compañeras are discussing their work and the current problems that they face in their cargos of leadership, the teaching and carrying out of justice, and the managing of resources, along with some reflection on the thorny issue of “gender equity” in the construction of a world that proposes to be inclusive and tolerant, a world where “no one is more, no one is less.”
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(…)
Yes, we have had to settle cases like this. Once we had a case—I will comment here on what the other compañera already mentioned—when we had barely entered the Junta [Good Government Council], they put the two of us in charge of a team and a problem was brought to us. A compañera complained that her husband was mistreating her. It is an incredible story and it was a really ugly situation for us. The compañera said:
“I want a separation from my husband,” but this now ex compa already had two wives.
We investigated the situation. We called the children of the first wife and of the second, and from there we started to come up with a solution. That’s why it took us a while, the situation was really messed up. We had asked the compañera:
“And what is it that he did to you,” thinking that he had only hit her.
No, this darned guy had hung the compañera from by her feet and hit her, same as with two of his other children. And so we had to find a solution. What was our solution? The compañera asked for a separation, so we did this by distributing their belongings between the first wife and her children, because it was the man who had committed the offense and we couldn’t leave her with nothing, and the second wife, because she already had a grown son. We didn’t leave anything to the man, we left the rest to the son so that our decision would be clear to the man. We divided up all of his things, this is how we solved the problem, we decided in favor of the compañera who had come to us to make her complaint.
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Yolanda: We’re going to continue with what I am to talk about, which is a little bit about the law [Women’s Revolutionary Law]. As you know, this law was created precisely to address the situation that the compañeras lived on a daily basis. This is why it was created, because before the law they suffered a lot, as we have already heard and I won’t repeat now. This law is already written; we have it in the five caracoles.
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But we see that it is very important that we study this law well, because if we don’t really understand what it is that this law tells us, as we have discussed a little bit in this zone, the same history can repeat itself again, where it is forgotten that woman is the giver of life, as we have heard happened before. If we don’t understand this law that we Zapatistas have, this could occur again.
This law was not made so that now women could give the orders, it wasn’t so that women could dominate their husbands, their compañeros; this is not what it means. That’s why we need to really study this law, because that is not the reality that we are going to create, nor do we want to follow the history that we have now, where the compañeros who are machistas [chauvinist] give the orders. But if we misinterpret this [law], the same thing could happen but where the compañeras will give the orders and the poor compañeros will be left out, and this is not what we want.
What we are after is something like a construction of humanity, this is what we are trying to change, and this requires another world. It is like the goal of everything we are doing, men and women, because as we have already heard, it isn’t a woman’s struggle and it isn’t a man’s struggle. When we’re talking about revolution they must go together, among all men and women, that is how struggle is made.
It can’t be that the compañeros say we are struggling here, making revolution, but only compañeros take on the cargos and the compañeras stay in the house. That is not a struggle for everyone. What we want is a struggle for everyone, both men and women. This is what we want.
But let’s be clear that we are still learning this first law, it still makes us a little dizzy, because the truth is that as compañeras it is still very difficult for us to take on a cargo, any cargo.
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You mentioned that there is a commission of honor and justice. What is its job and what is the role of the compañeras there?
On the question of honor and justice and the role of the compañeras, just like in the municipality we take turns, we have two consejas [female members of the municipal council], two consejos [male members], and one man and one woman assigned to honor and justice. So for example if a compañera has a problem, for example in the case of a rape, she would go talk to the compañera assigned to honor and justice. That compañera from the honor and justice commission then coordinates with the man on the honor and justice commission so that the compañera with the problem doesn’t have to feel uncomfortable with the male compa. That is how the honor and justice commission works.
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(…)
At the zone level, we have another example that is a job done especially by women compañeras. It is a women’s initiative where they created a cafeteria-store, that is, they have a small cafeteria and a small grocery store. They started with a loan of 15 thousand pesos and hatched their idea for this project. The initiative was made by the regional and local leaders in coordination with the Junta, which supported them with tables, dishes, and other useful things for the cafeteria. Various people cooperated to make this happen, but it was these compañeras who had the idea, did the work, and organized it all.
They began with 15 thousand pesos, they have organized their leadership responsibilities, and the compañeras in charge locally take turns at the zone level preparing and selling the food. They reported to us that, in their first business ever, they made a profit of 40 thousand pesos. With this 40 thousand pesos they could pay back the loan that they had taken out, which was 15 thousand pesos, and they had 25 thousand pesos left over.
Then they began to think that they were missing some of the things that they needed to round out the project. The Junta had supported them, as I said, with dishes and tables, but they began to think that with their earnings they wanted to improve things a little, and so they used these profits to better equip themselves. Now they are working like this, they have their leadership, the work rotates among the compañeras, and every year they change the makeup of the leadership. The communities control what is sold there, and they have informed us that they currently have 56,176 pesos in cash according to their last account balance.
All of this is work that we have been doing at the zone level, not with the objective to divide it up among ourselves or to spend these small funds that we are generating, but rather to be prepared for anything that we might need in the zone, for the things that will help us in the struggle.
(…)
We know that in the Tzeltal Jungle zone there are compañeras who are comisariadas (like commissioners), or agentas, how does it work there for these compañeras to be comisariadas and agentas, tell us, share with us how it is. Are there compañeras who function as local authorities? How do they do this? How do these compañeras work? Because there are also compañeros who are comisariados and agentes. What we want to do here is share how it is that we teach ourselves, help ourselves, prepare ourselves. In this case, especially with respect to the compañeras, how do the compañera authorities work in the communities?
What do the compañeras do in their communities as a comisariada or agenta?
The agentas, for example, in my community, are the ones who watch over the community, who keep vigil over certain kinds of problems, things like small interpersonal issues, or problems with animals that cause harm or damages. It is the agente who is responsible for solving these types of problems. They also hold meetings to provide guidance on how to avoid problems with alcohol and drug addiction. These compañeras always participate, in every meeting, providing this guidance to avoid arriving at more serious problems. The comisariadas also hold meetings to discuss land issues—the care of the surrounding lands and the use of agro-chemicals. We planned all of this out as regulations that the comisariadas and agentes administer within the communities to maintain this control.
For the compañeras who have already become agentas, whose job is it to solve problems in the communities, can they already solve the problems themselves, or do they do it with the support of compañeros?
In my community, sometimes the compañeras request the support of a local authority to listen to an issue if they aren’t sure how to participate, so they may ask for counsel. That happens often, but there are times when they [the authorities] aren’t there and the compañeras do it alone. For example, in my community, the agent is a compañera, and so is the substitute agent, and so the two of them have resolved problems themselves. As they have seen it done a few times, they follow this example and create solutions.
(…)
Of the 60 members, are they half compañeras and half compañeros?
Yes compañero, we are half and half, no one is more, no one is less.
(…)
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(To be continued…)
I testify.
From the mountains of Southeastern Mexico.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico, February 2013.
“Tierra y Libertad,” by the group “FUGA.” The song begins with a fragment of the EZLN’s words in the Mexican Congress, demanding compliance with the San Andrés Accords. An indigenous woman gave our Zapatista word there. The group FUGA is comprised of Tania, Leo, Kiko, Oscar and Rafa. The song can be found on the album “Rola la lucha Zapatista.”
Mapuche women in resistance against predatory mining companies.
Zapatista women in their cargos in the Junta de Buen Gobierno in La Realidad, Chiapas, in 2008.
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Traducción del Kilombo Intergaláctico.
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Zapatista News Summary for February 2013
FEBRUARY 2013 ZAPATISTA NEWS SUMMARY
Comandante Moisés
In Chiapas
1. EZLN Introduces Subcomandante Moisés – During February, the EZLN released Part VI, entitled Gazes, of the essay THEM AND US. All 6 parts are translated into English on our blog: https://compamanuel.wordpress.com/
In Part VI, which also has 6 sections, Marcos announces that the EZLN has a new Subcomandante: Moisés, who has been a lieutenant colonel in the EZLN’s military arm for the past approximately 10 years. Moisés is widely believed to be the successor to Marcos and this promotion and appointment would seem to confirm it. The introduction was followed by a letter from Subcomandante Moisés. In the letter, Moisés explains that his role is to be the “door” and the role of Marcos is to be the “window.” Apparently the role of the “door” is to get to know us, the adherents to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle (the Sixth or la Sexta) and the role of Marcos is to look at or watch those on the outside (not part of the Sixth) who continue to look “above,” as well as those who refuse to look above. Moisés also introduced us to the “little schools” where the Zapatista bases will teach us about freedom; in other words Freedom Schools.
2. Zapatistas Talk About Autonomous Government; Invite Us to “Little Schools” – The EZLN next issued Part VII of THEM AND US in February. In the first communiqué of Part VII, titled “The Smallest Ones,” Marcos tells us that the Zapatista support bases are preparing “little schools” where they will teach adherents to the Sixth Declaration about their experience constructing autonomy and government. The course will be called “Freedom According to the Zapatistas.” The next several sections of Part Vii consist of transcriptions of recordings from a conference that Zapatista support bases held to talk about their experiences. Zapatista support bases talk about creating autonomous government and the history of Zapatista women. The women’s voices tell an amazing story! See:
The 4th communiqué in Part VII, also about women’s stories, is not yet translated into English.
3. Zapatistas in San Marcos Aviles In Danger of Eviction – On February 23, the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) issued an URGENT ACTION regarding the threat of imminent eviction to Zapatista families living in San Marcos Avles ejido. Political party members in the ejido have asked the municipal government to evict the Zapatistas for failing to pay a property tax. The on-going harassment from the political parties in the ejido and threats of yet another violent eviction pose a dangerous situation and a hostile environment for all the Zapatistas living there.
4. Chiapas Civil Organizations Call Attention to the Situation in Busiljá – Nine Chiapas organizations, including human rights groupings, denounced the “profound humanitarian crisis” involving the 7 displaced Tzeltal families from the Busilja ejido. The 7 families are members of the Genaro Vazquez Rojas Front of Ejidos and are adherents to the EZLN’s Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle. Specifically, a little girl remains kidnapped and disappeared by paramilitaries living in Busilja, one of the displaced family members is incarcerated unjustly in a state prison and members of all 7 displaced families have arrest warrants issued for them because of not abandoning their lands or not accepting projects from the government. The nine organizations demand that the state government release the man in prison, Elias Sanchez Gomez (son), cancel the arrest warrants and comply with an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights determination of precautionary measures for the little missing girl, Gabriela Sanchez Morales.
In Other Parts of Mexico
1. Survey Finds that Zapatismo Remains Alive for 44% of Mexicans Polled – “The silent marches realized in some localities in the state of Chiapas last December 21, marked the return of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN, its initials in Spanish) and of its representative Subcomandante Marcos, to the country’s public and political life” postulates the polling company Parametría in a national study about the theme, effectuated last January, which showed that for 44 (percent) of those polled the movement “continues alive.”
2. U.S. Escalation of Mexico Drug War – On December 31, 2012, before leaving the Pentagon, then U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta established a new US-based special operations headquarters to teach Mexican security forces how to hunt drug cartels the same way special operations teams hunt al-Qaeda, according to a report from the Associated Press last month. The new headquarters will be at the US Northern Command in Colorado. Navy Admiral Bill McRaven is in charge of the special operations command. This is the latest step in the U.S. escalation of the militarization of Mexico.
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Compiled monthly by the Chiapas Support Committee.The primary sources for our information are: La Jornada, Enlace Zapatista and the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba).
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Chiapas Support Committee/Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas
P.O. Box 3421, Oakland, CA 94609
Email: cezmat@igc.org
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EZLN: Marcos: THEM AND US VII. The Smallest Ones 3. The Compañeras
Protected: THEM AND US. VII. – The Smallest Ones 3. The Compañeras – The very long path of the Zapatista women.
THEM AND US
VII. – The Smallest Ones 3.
3. – Las Compañeras – The very long path of the Zapatista women.
February 2013.
NOTA: We continue with some fragments from the sharing of the Zapatista women, the same ones that make up part of the notebook of text entitled “Participation of women in autonomous government.“ In these fragments, the compañeras talk about how they see their own history of struggle as women and, on the way, bring down some of the sexist, racist and anti-Zapatista ideas that, in all of the political specter, there are about women, about indigenous women and about the Zapatistas.
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Good morning, everyone. My name is Guadalupe. My town is Galilea in the Monterrey Region. As you heard, there are regions that don’t have an autonomous municipio. I come from a region where there is no autonomous municipio. My position is education promoter and I represent Caracol II “Resistance and Rebelliousness for Humanity” in the Los Altos Zone of Chiapas. To begin I am going to present a small introduction so that we are able to enter the theme.
We know that from the beginning of life women had a very important role in society, in the peoples, en las tribes. Women didn’t live like we live now. They were respected; they were most important for the family’s preservation. They were respected because they give life just like we now respect the Mother Earth that gives us life. In that time the woman had a very important role but with history and with the arrival of private property that was changing.
Upon the arrival of private property the woman was relegated, passed to another level and what we call “patriarchy” arrived with the plunder of women’s rights, with the plunder of land. It was then with the arrival of private property that the men began to command. We know that with this arrival of private property three great evils were presented, which are the exploitation of everyone, men and women, but more the women, as women are also exploited by this neoliberal system We also know that with it came the oppression of men towards women for being women and we also suffer as women at this time discrimination for being indigenous. Then we have these three great evils. There are others but right now we aren’t talking about that.
We inside the organization, with such a lack of rights as women, saw it necessary to struggle for the equality of rights between men and women. It was how our Women’s Revolutionary Law was decided. We know that we here in the Altos Zone perhaps have not had big advances. The advances have been small; they are slow but we are advancing, compañeras and compañeros.
Here we are going to say in the Altos Zone how it is that we have advanced with the different levels, in the different areas, in the different places where we work. We are also going to tell how in the revolutionary law we have seen, we have analyzed, before coming here, between men and women analyzed how we are in each one of these points of the Women’s Revolutionary Law. That is what we are going to say; because it is very important that not only women will participate in this analysis; the men also need to participate to listen to what we think, what we say. Because if we are talking about a revolutionary struggle, we don’t make a revolutionary struggle only with the men or only with the women; it is the task of everyone, it is the task of the people and as people we have boys, girls, men, women, young men, young women, adult males, adult females, elderly men and elderly women. We all have a place in this struggle and therefore we all must participate in this analysis and in the tasks that we have pending.
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Compañeros, compañeras, my name is Eloisa, from the town called Alemania, San Pedro Michoacán municipio. I was a member of the Good Government Junta, of Caracol I “Mother of the Caracols. Sea of Our Dreams.” It’s up to us to talk a little about the theme of the compañeras and it’s up to me to talk a little about how it is what the participation of the compañeras was before ‘94 and a little about how we were advancing after ‘94.
As we talk in our zone, we as compañeras did not participate from the beginning. Our compañeras from earlier did not have that idea that we as compañeras are able to participate. We had that thinking or that idea that we as women are only useful for the home or caring for the children, making the food. Perhaps it will be because of the same ignorance of capitalism that that is what we had in our heads. But we also as women felt that fear of not being able to do things outside the home, just as we also did not have that space at the side of the compañeros.
Like we didn’t have that freedom of participating, of speaking, as it was thought that the men were more than us. When we were under the domination of our fathers, our fathers did not give us that freedom to go out because there was a lot of machismo that existed before. Perhaps with the compañeros it’s not because they wanted to do it but rather because they had the idea that the same capitalism or the same system didn’t penetrate into our heads. Also because the compañero is not accustomed to doing the work inside the home, caring for the children, washing the clothes, making the food and that it’s difficult for the compañero to do the work inside the home so its hard for him to take care of the children so that the compañera can leave to do her work.
As I said before, the compañeras that lived under the dominion of our fathers or that still lived with our parents, as we have a respect that when we are with our parents, our parents say whether we are able to do the work, because we’re going away to where we do the work. But if our parents, at times tell us no you are not going to go, it’s that at time a we respect it, also at times we have in our head we respect our parents. Then there are times that our parents don’t take us out. It has also happened that they think that by taking us out of our houses as daughters we are not going to the work that corresponds to us but rather that we are going to do other things and then we involve our parents in problems and our parents already occupy that space to settle our different problems that we have as women. Also at times that is the idea of our parents or of our husbands, those that are already couples, in other words, sometimes the compañeros (men) also have that idea.
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Compañeros and compañeras, a very good afternoon to all of you present here today. My name is Andrea, my town is San Manuel, my municipio is Francisco Gómez of Caracol III “La Garrucha.” We came representing ourselves as compañeras from the zone of Garrucha. We manage to express ourselves because we don’t bring so many words. The majority there speaks Tzeltal.
I am going to begin first with that we knew before ‘94 that the compañeras had suffered a lot. There were humiliations, mistreatment, rapes, but that wasn’t important to the government, its work is only to destroy us as women. It wasn’t important if there is a woman that was sick or if you ask for help or aid; that is not important.
But we as women, now, no longer can permit than, we must continue forward. We suffered as women in those times, as the compañeras have commented. In those times I said that there were a lot of humiliations that the bad government did and also the finqueros (estate owners). What did they do at that time? It’s that they weren’t taking the compañeras into account.
What did those finqueros do? They had the compañeros in peonage (near slavery). The compañeras were getting up very early to work and it’s still that way. The poor women continued working alongside the men. There was much slavery, but the compañeros, now no longer want that. That’s how it is that our participation as compañeras appeared. At that time there was no participation. They had us as if we were blind, without being able to speak. But what we want right now is that our autonomy functions. Now we want to participate as women, that we are no longer left behind. We will continue forward so that the bad government may see that we no longer let ourselves be exploited as it did with our ancestors. We no longer want that.
It wasn’t until 1994 that we had our Women’s Law. That’s good, compañeros, that now we can participate. Starting with that year they have gone to demonstrations, it has now been seen that the compañeras have participated. For example, the women also went to the National Consultation; they participated. I was also present at that time. I was 14 years old and I was present in the National Consultation. I did not know how to participate or speak, but I got to where I could do it, compañeros.
Women have struggled, have demonstrated their ability to struggle, and the government now realizes that women won’t give up; we will keep going. And now, as I said, we want our autonomy to function. Now that we have rights as women, what we are going to do is build, do our work; it is now our obligation, as they say, to keep going.
So a question for those of us who are present here, maybe for one of the compañeras that follows me: do you know who made the Revolutionary Law? If someone wants to answer they can, because someone fought for this law and defended us. Who was it that fought for us compañeras? It was Comandanta Ramona, she made this effort for us. She didn’t know how to read or write, nor did she speak Spanish. So why don’t we, compañeras, make this same effort? She, who already made this effort, is our example. She is the example that we are going to follow going forward in our work, to demonstrate what we know in our organization.
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It is my job to represent the compañeras who are going to participate on the subject of women, there are 5 compañeras who are going to participate. Good afternoon to everyone. My name is Claudia and I come from the Caracol IV of Morelia. I am one of the bases of support from the pueblo Alemania, region Independencia, autonomous municipality “17 de Noviembre”. I am going to read a short introduction before entering our sub-themes. I am going to read the text, because if I just say it, being up here in front, I’m going to forget what I want to say.
Before, a long time ago, we suffered mistreatment, discrimination, and inequality in the home and in the community. We always suffered. They told us that we were mere objects, that we weren’t good for anything, because that is what our grandmothers had taught us. They only taught us to work in the house, in the field, to take care of the children and the animals, and to serve our husbands.
We did not have the opportunity to go to school, that’s why we do not know how to read or write, much less speak Spanish. They told us that women do not have the right to participate or to complain. We didn’t know how to defend ourselves, nor did we know what rights were. That’s how the bosses, who were the ranchers, educated our grandmothers.
Some of us still today have this idea that we must only work in the house, because that suffering has continued to imprison us in that idea even now, But after December of 1994, the autonomous municipalities were formed and there is where we began to participate, to learn how to do this work, thanks to our organization which gave us a space for our participation as compañeras, but also thanks to our compañeros, to our parents who began to understand that we have a right to do this kind of work.
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Compañera Ana. It is our turn again, the Zona Norte, the participants who are going to speak on the themes that we analyzed in our Caracol are here. I am going to begin with an introduction.
Many years ago there was equality between men and women, because there wasn’t one who was more important than the other. Inequality began little by little with the division of labor, when the men became those who went to the field to cultivate food, went hunting to complement our food supply, and women stayed in the house to do domestic work, as well as the weaving and spinning of clothes and the making of kitchen utensils like pots, glasses, clay plates. Later another division of work arose when some people began to work in livestock. Cattle began to serve as a form of money. They were used as exchange. With time this activity became the most important, even more so when the bourgeoisie arose, who dedicated themselves to buying and selling in order to accumulate profits. The men did all of this work and that is why it’s men who rule the family, because only the man earned money for family expenses, and the work of women was not recognized as important. That’s why women were viewed as less, weak, incapable of work.
That was the custom, the way of life the Spanish brought when they came to conquer our peoples, as we said before, it was the friars who educated and instructed us in their customs and knowledge. From that point on they taught us that women had to serve men and pay attention to their orders, that women must cover their heads with a veil when they go to church, and that a woman shouldn’t let her gaze wander just anywhere, she must keep her head down. It was believed that it was women who made men sin, and that is why the church did not permit women to go to school, much less occupy positions of responsibility (cargos).
We as indigenous peoples adopted as a culture the way that the Spanish treated their women, that is why inequality between men and women arose in our communities and continues to this day. These are examples:
Women were not allowed to go to school, and if a young girl left to study somewhere she was looked upon badly by the people in the communities. Little girls weren’t allowed to play with little boys, or to touch their toys. The only work women were to do was in the kitchen and raising children. Young single women did not have the freedom even to walk around the community or in the city, they had to be shut up in their house, and when they got married they were exchanged for alcohol or other goods without even giving their word as to if they were in agreement or not, because they did not have the right to choose their spouse. Once they were married they could not go anywhere alone or talk to other people, especially men. Their own husbands mistreated women and there was no concern for justice, this kind of mistreatment happened mostly when men were drinking. Women had to live their whole lives like that, in suffering and abuse.
Another thing that mothers did was instruct their daughters how to serve food to their brothers, so that later on they would live well with their husband and not be mistreated. It was believed that the reason for mistreatment was that the woman did not learn to serve her husband and do everything he said.
But our grandfathers and grandmothers also had good customs that we continue to practice today. They did not worry much when someone was sick, because they knew medicinal plants and they knew how to take care of their health. They didn’t worry about lack of money because they grew everything they needed to feed themselves. That’s why women were strong, they were workers, they made their own clothes, cal [lime], and even though they didn’t know their rights, they could go forward.
(…)
(To be continued…)
I attest.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico, February 2013.
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Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Watch and listen to the videos that accompany this text:
En español: http://desinformemonos.org/2013/02/la-comandanta-ramona-y-las-zapatistas/print/
As this is about women, here Violeta Parra sings “Arauco tiene una pena.” 50 years after this voice, the Mapuche People continue to resist and transform this shame into rage.
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Audios and Images from the gathering “La Comandanta Ramona and the Zapatistas,” celebrated in Zapatistas lands in December of 2007. In one part, our compañera Comandanta Susana remembers Comandanta Ramona, deceased in January of 2006.
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Message from the Zapatista compañeras to the compañeras of the world, in December of 2006. At minute 2:22 the compañera says, “We don’t need a professional to come tell us how we should live.”
EZLN: Marcos: THEM AND US VII – The Smallest Ones 2. How is it done?
Protected: THEM AND US VII. – The Smallest Ones 2. -How is it done?
THEM AND US
VII. – The Smallest Ones 2. 
2. – How is it done?
February 2013.
Note: Compas, at another time (if it comes to pass) we will explain how our EZLN is organized. Now we don’t want to distract you from the “Sharing.“ We just want to clarify that you are going to see something from an “Information Commission.” This Commission is formed by compañeras and compañeros, comandantes and comandantas (The CCRI or Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee), who examine the work of autonomy, support the Good Government Juntas and keep the Zapatista support bases informed of how everything goes. Here go, then, more fragments from the Zapatista “sharing:”
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(…)
We do the work in this way. Like here in the last one it says: how are problems resolved? Yes, there have been problems in the municipio [1]. Problems of land, problems with threats, problems with electricity, yes it exists and I believe that those problems exist in all the towns, because we don’t live with just those who are support bases, it’s more when we live in the official towns where the enemies are, where those that govern are, where the paramilitaries are, therefore those problems exist. But we have to look at the way in which we must govern, although really learning does cost you because, as some compañeros say, there is no instructive. There is no form from which to guide each other, there is no writing where we must guide ourselves, but we must remember what was useful to our ancestors when they were not named by the officials but rather by the people and they served the people and there was no paycheck. Now the corruption began, the bad service began and it’s when the paycheck entered.
Therefore in this way, the little that I have been in my town, in my municipio, it’s how I have been able to serve although still, as I have said, we continue learning, not because now we age. We continue learning with everyone. I believe that this is the function of the different levels, as well as the commissioners and agents, also have their function but also lack how to resolve a problem. Yes it’s lacking because we are not prepared, because we as campesinos focus more on the countryside, our law is the machete and lime, and the pozol that we carry. Well I don’t know if I am bad, compañeros, but that is what I manage to share with you.
(…)
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(…)
We held many meetings and we made many agreements; not only once was the agreement made, we saw that it is a heavy job. It is not easy to do. Why? Because just as I said a little while ago, we have no guide, we have no book where we can look, to follow; we were working with our people.
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(…)
Compañeros, that is what we are talking about, and no longer is there much that I am going to complete. Just like we were saying about the way in which we want to manage the work. Many times the Junta cannot do it alone, although it passes in our mind, although the thought comes to us, one must be the base of coordination with the councils, comités [CCRI], so that that idea can be made from what we think, because it that way in some cases.
For example, we talked about the positions, the responsibilities; there we see the difficulties that there are many jobs to do. The time when I was in charge we saw that at times the members of the Junta fail and the work exists; for example, at that time there were no drivers for the clinic, the Junta has to be the driver, has to be the cook, has to go looking for firewood, had many jobs and also the work inside of the office has to be done, we have to study what’s pending (lacking), the jobs that remain pending or some work of the municipio that has not been resolved, as there is not enough time. Now I see, and that crossed our mind, that we were indeed in need of help, with another separate driver, because at times it was up to us to go get an urgently sick person at midnight, the Junta has to go, it arrives at three in the morning, at four in the morning. That crossed our mind but we could not resolve it, it was present but we just couldn’t.
An example in my turn, about the municipios, diagnosing the most frequent sickness in the municipios and it couldn’t be defined in the Junta, nor with information. I had to ask for help if it could be done or not, and with help from the commander, which is what was needed. The municipio was asked and some municipios did not act again, some municipios gave that response, consulted the people about what the most frequent illness was, because there was an outbreak of typhoid but the councils didn’t do it. When all the work is done then it functions well. It’s like a machine. When a machine doesn’t function a piston or a cylinder in the car doesn’t rise, it has no power. That is what happens to us in our authority, although the Junta thinks or wants to put its proposal for approval with the assembly at times, many times it can’t be done and it stays there like that.
But it is indeed a need. At that time I saw there was a lot of work in that year because there was no driver. Right now I see that now drivers are rotating for the clinics, apart from their work, that doesn’t work on the Junta, washing its car, checking the tires, filling it with gas are separate.
It’s improving a little more in that step and I believe that way little by little it’s going to be improving, always and when we are thinking and seeing what the necessities are that are being presented, because the work of the zone or of the municipio is increasing little by little. Little by little more compañeras are participating because the work is being born. That is what we see that is very important, the coordination between everyone and taking ourselves into account between everyone to be able get the proposals and new ideas about how to be able to work.
The importance is to not lose contact with the peoples in these times of work. I hear that there are things that were done with analysis from the people and now they can be done without consulting the people, they can change some letters without the people knowing it, then that is also a problem that we can run amok of the people, because when we teach the people, we explain to them and when we suddenly set the people aside, they speak, they discuss.
That can bring non-conformities or they speak ill of the authorities, and many times one needs to explain it to the people, like we were saying today, the Junta has to be clear with the seven principles. [He refers to the 7 principles of govern obeying” that guide the Good Government Juntas, which are: To serve and not Serve yourself; To Represent and not Supplant; To Construct and not Destroy; to Obey and not Order; to Propose and not Impose; to Convince and not Conquer; to Descend and not Climb].
It is convincing the people and not surmount by force whatever an authority wants, he must explain the reason for modifying any rules or agreements, it must be explained to the people; because if I am an authority and I no longer explain to them that no, but that point came from the people? It can bring non-conformity although the people understand it; but with explanation it is trying to convince and not force it on them, so that the people don’t become discouraged, don’t lose control. That is what I can explain a little more, because disagreements are born from that and the people go around demoralized, that’s why I say it, because I saw the problem that way.
One must always be rooted with the people.
There are also towns that also want to do something without a majority, then one must also explain to that town that it cannot be done, because some cases of that type happened to us. There are peoples that come into the office and even raise their voice against the authorities but we cannot accept it because it depends on the majority. One must be clear in that, but it is to explain to the people and try to convince them de, let them understand the reason why these things are done. That’s my opinion, compañeros, and that is what I try to explain about the seven principles, it is what I understood, what I learned a little. I didn’t learn much because I only worked three years and little by little I was learning, at the same time one cannot do the work easy because we entered new without help, but not now, there are compañeros that still remain for one year accompanying the new authorities, so that one is more or less supported.
But not when we started, there was no help like that other than the comités [CCRI] because they were here, we helped each other with that and little by little we learned. I understood a little, it’s the little that I was able to explain, compañeros.
(…)
How were they named?
They were named through the assembly; it is an example of how we are now. Each municipio called the base to an assembly, and then they directly chose that group of compañeros to do the work of autonomy.
What work did they have? What work are those compañeros going to do because we had practically no knowledge? Perhaps some did have, but a majority doesn’t have knowledge. What are we going to do? We are going to work on autonomy; we are going to govern ourselves. The question that emerged is how; what is it we are going to do? It’s just that no one, just that it doesn’t have, didn’t know the answer, but as time passed, when they were already authorities, then the problems came out. There were really problems in each one of our towns, in our municipios.
What are the problems that those who were authorities at that time confronted?
At that time the principal problem that we confronted was alcoholism, family problems, problems between neighbors and some agrarian problems.
Then what did that group of compañeros do when a problem was presented?
What they did is they discuss it. First comes the complainant and later the problem he has is heard, it listened, when they already listened they cite the other party. The two parties are heard. Then what that group of compañeros did is to listen, what they did is that those brothers that have a problem were heard first as to what the problem is that they have and at the same time was heard who is right. As soon as we saw that the complainant was right then one must speak with the other brother with whom he has the problem.
What the authorities did at that time is that they were giving ideas, in other words they were convincing the two parties to reach a peaceful solution without so much fuss.
The authorities did the same thing with other types of problems, they did that in agrarian questions, they also convinced the brothers not to fight with each other, that they not fight with each other over a piece of land; if the brother is really take a piece of land away then one must also give the reason that the other one is taking away land that he should be doing. What it is, it is.
(…)
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(…)
Yes, that so, but then my question is whether it’s necessary to make a rule, and then who proposes the idea? Where is the idea born of how a rule ought to be made? Who is it that says ‘I propose that’? Where is the idea born? And directly then, how do you do it so that it unites the voice of the people, because if it is now appropriately up to the Junta, does it assume that or must it still be supported by the compañeros of the Information Commission? Or who is it that says that one must make a rule here?
Response of another compañero: Thus there may be an initiative purely from compañera authorities, from what comes the initiative how to make a rule, now just from pure compañeras that are functioning from a position of authority, that does not exist yet.
No, compa, my question is as a Good Government Junta, not as compañeras. As the Good Government Junta and it is an example that I am giving, it is not especially about regulation or about law. When they see that there is a need or there is a problem, therefore I give the example of a regulation, because that demands the relationship, because the Good Government Junta is not going to impose a law, then we would like them to speak with us how it is that they do that. Because here is where the play of democracy enters, then what we want to understand, well not all the time, like you told us, it’s not going to be all the time the insurgente commanders either. We understand that one day it won’t be the Information Commission all the time either, in other words the CCRI [Comité Clandestino Revolucionario Indígena]. Then how do you, as the Good Government Junta, make a thing that is needed, that is already law that is now a problem start to go around, about any issue that is necessary to take forward, a project or whatever. What is the relationship between the Good Government Junta, the MAREZ [Autonomous Zapatista Rebel Municipios], the authorities and the towns?
In other words, how does one make democracy?
(…)
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(It will continue…)
I atttest.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico, February 2013.
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1. Municipio – We did not translate the Spanish word into English. The literal translation is municipality. In Zapatista territory, the autonomous municipios are like rural counties.
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Listen and watch the videos that accompany this text:
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2013/02/22/ellos-y-nosotros-vii-ls-mas-pequens-2-como-se-hace/
Alfredo Zitarrosa, maestro perhaps involuntarily of an Eastern generation that still struggles with South American ballads, sad love songs and street dances. Here singing “Adagio in my country” and by country, it’s clear, he refers to each corner in which many worlds abound and run together.
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Arturo Meza with the song “The Rebelliousness of Light.” In one part of the song maestro Meza mentions each one of the original peoples that, in Mexico, resist and struggle.
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Daniel Viglietti, our brother and compa, reads a story called “The Story of Noise and Silence” that tries, in vane, to explain the Zapatista silences and glances.
EZLN; Marcos; The Smallest Ones 1. Learning to govern
[Dear Readers: The texts in this communiqué are about how the 4 municipios in the region where we work were founded. It explains who Compañero (Compa) Manuel is and how our partner municipio got its name.]
Protected: THEM AND US VII. – The Smallest Ones 1. Learning to govern and to govern each other, in other words, to respect and to respect each other.
THEM AND US
VII. – The Smallest Ones 1.
1. – Learning to govern and to govern each other, in other words, to respect and to respect each other.
February 2013.
Note: the notebooks with text, which are part of the support material for the course “Freedom according to the Zapatistas,” are the product of the meetings that the Zapatista support bases from all the zones held to evaluate the organization’s work. Tzotzil, Chol, Tzeltal, Tojolabal, Mam, Zoque and mestizo compañeras and compañeros, coming from the communities in resistance of the 5 caracoles, asked each other questions and responded with answers, exchanged their experiences (that are different according to each zone). They criticized, self-criticized, and evaluated how they have advanced and what there is still to do. Those meetings were coordinated by our compañero Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés and were taped, transcribed and worked on for the elaboration of the notebooks with text de.
As in these meetings the compas shared with each other their thoughts, their histories, their problems and possible solutions, they are the ones who put the name to this process: the sharing.“
These are some free fragments from the Zapatista sharing:
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(…)
We are here to share the experience and one of those, our word as Zapatistas, is that we govern each other; we govern collectively. How can sharing give us the form of how you govern together collectively?
The way that we are working is not to be separate from the people. Just as we always do in questions of speaking about regulations or about plans for activities, for work, the information has to reach the people and the authorities have to be present in the plans, in making the proposals.
(…)
There we are working on some things that we consider as part of the obligations of autonomous government, one is that it is the obligation of the autonomous government to attend to any person that goes to the office for different issues, whether a solution to his issue is given or not, he must be heard. Whomever, Zapatista or non-Zapatista, that’s how we are working there, always and when he is not a government person or envoy, if that’s what he is, well those are not attended to, he is not attended to there. But if he is not, if he is with some social organization, he is attended to. We are also working there and always pending that we are complying with the seven principles of “mandar obedeciendo” (govern by obeying) and we think that we must do it like that, it’s like an obligation, so as not to commit the same errors as the instances (agencies) of the bad government and not to keep their same ways, then that which is going to govern us are the seven principles.
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The first Aguascalientes was constructed in Guadalupe Tepeyac and that’s where the first step of our organization and our way of asserting our rights began. This Aguascalientes we said is a cultural, political, social, economic, ideological center, but with the treason of Ernesto Zedillo, he thought with this dismantlement, that offensive that he made, thought that with that he was going to end the politics of our organization. But his policy did the reverse because from right there, in that same year of ‘94, it was declared that five more Aguascalientes would be made.
(…)
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These municipios said where the headquarters is going to be; then they began to look for names for the municipios, what they are going to call them. Once they have the headquarters, they now began to see what they are going to name the municipios. The first autonomous municipio [1] in La Garrucha (the headquarters) said that it is going to be called Francisco Gómez; the other municipio that is now San Manuel, for which Las Tazas was the headquarters, that one we said was called San Manuel; Taniperlas was called Ricardo Flores Magón; San Salvador, Francisco Villa. All these were in honor of the compañeros like Francisco Gómez that we all already know, because he is a compañero that gave his life for our cause, and we already talked about the compañero, who died in combat in Ocosingo on January 1, thus it was called Francisco Gómez. Then San Manuel in honor of Compañero Manuel, who is the founder of our organization. Ricardo Flores Magón, well we know that he is a historic social struggler. And Francisco Villa, well he is likewise a revolutionary that we all know. Then that’s how our municipios were formed, that’s how we decided to make the names of all our municipios and the agreements. All were made in a community assembly, in the regional assembly, that’s where all our municipios were named. Compañeros, it is the few words that I am going to tell you and you are going to pass to other compañeros or compañeras to explain what’s next.
(…)
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The principal problems present from the beginning of [inaudible] were the problems of alcoholism. How is that problem now in your zone?
Look, compañero, in those times, at the beginning of 1994, a little bit after the war well, some entered with fear. The war started, we all crowded together, just as they told us, we got involved and for that we got involved, it can be that it happened like that, the people crowded together. Some, yes they did it consciously but others for fear, then who did it per se because of fear, are not happy doing the work. What is it that they were doing? Although we had the order that we should not take a drink, but what happens is that they were drinking covertly. What is it that we were doing? We were not punishing, what we were doing, for that we have we have the commission of elders; those are the ones in charge of asking why is he doing that and it was explained to him about the damage he is provoking to himself. Then those who obey then practically they are going to follow and those who don’t well they fight with each other. That is the answer.
(…)
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Compañeros and compañeras, good afternoon to everyone. I come from a village that is called ____, which belongs to the municipio of Francisco Villa. I come to represent the Good Government Junta. My position was Consejo (council member), in the year 2006 to 2009. I am going to explain how the cause of our position that we all have was. It’s not up to me to explain where we started in 1994. I am going to tell a little about how we began after 1994. Before, in 91, 92, what was the reason for the armed uprising? It’s because of the domination, the marginalization and the humiliation, because of the injustices and the rules or laws of the bad governments and of the exploiter landowners. And so before, our parents and grandparents, they were not taken into account, they were suffering and so we didn’t have land to work for the maintenance of our children. That’s why the Zapatista peoples began to organize where they said “ya basta (enough) of so much humiliation.” Then they rose up in arms. It wasn’t important to them to walk at night, or the hunger.
That’s how we were forming and we live organized, united, yes we could and we are going to be able to do more. After the uprising that we made happened, we saw how we are going to advance to form our autonomous authorities in each municipio. Because of that we are here all meeting to talk and share how it was that our autonomous governments began function. Why do I explain to you a little bit about that theme? It’s because what I think is that from there we were starting and advancing to where we are right now. In the theme that we are going to start to see, the word is up to compañero ___. He is going to explain as of today how we are working in our municipios and in the Good Government Junta. It is all of my word, compañeros.
Compañeros, that’s how the other compa talked, now Compañero _____ is going to try to explain to us, because he was the founder of our autonomous government in our Caracol III, over there in La Garrucha, the first authorities were the ones that founded. Now they are going to share how they worked, how they were, how they started and how we are as of now.
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(…)
As it was passed to me to make some comments to you, more or less one month after the beginning of our functions, there with an organization called the CIOAC [of PRD affiliation], they kidnapped a compañero and a truck and we felt obliged to denounce it and we did not have any idea of how to make a denunciation. Members of the Good Government Junta and the municipal councils had to give our word, one or two words, to make that denunciation, as a team, each one was giving his word and so we were making it up that like that and that’s how we were forming, that’s how we made up a denunciation, but we got it out. And therefore we made one a secretary, we made one a cook, we made one a sweeper, because we had to clean our office and all our work area. We did not especially have anyone who does those chores and so we continue doing it as of this date.
(…)
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(…)
That’s how we were working and that’s how we arrived as of 2003, with the formation of the Good Government Juntas. We arrived in the Good Government Juntas, because in that zone, by saying it that way, well we didn’t know no if that directive of the association of municipios would one day be the authorities and would be the government. But in 2003, when the Good Government Juntas happened, the people and the association of municipios decide that those eight compañeros, members of the Directive of the Association of Municipios, should pass to being the authorities of the Good Government Junta. And those eight compañeros then are the ones that take the position on the Good Government Junta, in the first period of the Good Government Junta, which was from 2003 to 2006.
That’s how it happened then, under the same conditions, the Good Government Junta didn’t have an adequate place. Days before the Good Government Juntas became public well the peoples constructed, urgently, a place for the Good Government Junta, as well as a place for each one of the autonomous municipios, in the center of the Caracol. They were constructed with the materials that the peoples had at that time, used wood, used metal roofs and that’s how it began. The construction was done and they were constructed in less than a week. That’s how it started, their offices were ready, August 2003 arrives and they are made public. The peoples meet after the publication, proud of having formed one more instance of government in autonomy. And in a fiesta, in a big celebration they formally install the new autonomous government, then delivering the office, with the materials that they had.
Well we were able to say that it was un chingo (a whole lot), but the town delivered a table and two chairs to the Good Government Junta, that was their material, and a place well a little smaller than this space where we are now, that’s how the conditions were. Days later, someone over there donated a little machine of the oldest kind and with that we started to work. We received an empty space and that’s how we started, they were presenting initiatives for work and we were beginning, fixing up the space.
(…)
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In the work also, as you see in the zone where we work, different ways of being exist, different ways of dressing, different colors, different beliefs, different ways of speaking, and in the work the compañero and compañera is also respected, independently of how he or she is. The only thing that interests us is the will and ability to work and then all that (difference) is not important to us whatever it may be.
(…)
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(It will continue…)
I attest.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico, February 2013.
1. Municipio – We did not translate the Spanish word into English. The literal translation is municipality. In Zapatista territory, the autonomous municipios are like rural counties.
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Listen and watch the videos that accompany this text:
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“Caracol Power” from Lengualerta/Cuyo, music Taxi Gang. Video of Pazyarte (Peace and Art), images of the Zapatista Caracol of Oventik, Chiapas. In minute 2:42 they ask a 2 international compas what they learned. They answer: “to share”
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Zach de La Rocha, vocalist of Rage Against the Machine, explains the interest of capital for annihilating Zapatismo (with a small intervention of Noam Chomsky). Zach has been in Zapatista communities, like one more, without boasting of being who he has been and is. He knew how to gaze at us; we learned how to gaze at him. Background music: the song “People of the Sun.”
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The cut “Song to the Rebellion,” from the group SKA-P, with the letter included. This cut is part of their new disc “99%,” which will come out next month in March 2013, courtesy of Marquitos Spoil. Oh, there is no reason for giving them. All right! Get ready to bust a move!
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EZLN: THEM AND US VII – The Smallest
THEM AND US
VII – The Smallest of them All.
Introduction.
February 2013.
For several years now, while in the politics of above they fought over the booty of a shattered nation, while the media was either silent or lied about what was happening, while the original peoples of this land went out of fashion and returned to a corner of oblivion, their lands looted, their inhabitants exploited, repressed, displaced, disrespected…
The indigenous Zapatista peoples,
Surrounded by the federal army, pursued by state and municipal police, attacked by paramilitary groups formed and equipped by governments from across the political spectrum in Mexico (PRI, PAN, PRD, PT, PVEM, MC and the other names taken by the parasitical Mexican political class), hounded by agents of the different national and foreign spy agencies, seeing their bases of support, men and women, beaten, displaced, imprisoned…
The indigenous Zapatista peoples
Without a show,
without any imperative other than duty,
without instruction manuals,
without any leaders but ourselves
without any referent other than the dream of our dead,
with only our history and memory as weapons,
looking near and far into calendars and geographies,
with our guide: Serve, not Serve yourself/ Represent, not Supplant/ Construct, not Destroy/ Obey, not Command/ Propose, not Impose/ Convince, not Defeat/ Go Below, not Climb Above.
The Zapatista peoples, the indigenous Zapatistas, the indigenous Zapatista bases of support of the eezeelen, with a new way of doing politics,
We made
We make
We will make
Freedom.
FREEDOM
OUR FREEDOM!
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Note of clarification:
The texts that will appear in this seventh and final part of “Them and Us” are fragments taken from the “First Grade Notebook from the Course: Freedom according to the Zapatistas. Autonomous Government I,” and “First Grade Notebook from the Course in: Freedom according to the Zapatistas. Autonomous Government II.” The Spanish version is ONLY for compas who are part of the Sixth (We hope there will be versions in the original languages as determined by the National Indigenous Congress, as well as in English, Italian, French, Portuguese, Greek, German, Euskera, Catalonian, Arabic, Hebrew, Galician, Kurdish, Aragonese, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Japanese, and other languages, according to the support of compas of the Sixth around the world who know about the task of translating). These notebooks form part of the support material for the course that the Zapatista bases of support will give to the compas of the Sixth in Mexico and from around the world.
All of the texts are authored by the Zapatista bases of support, men and women, and they include not only the process of the struggle for freedom, but also their critical and self-critical reflections about our path. That is, they demonstrate how we Zapatistas see freedom and how we struggle to achieve it, exercise it, and defend it.
As our compañero Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés has already explained, our compas from the Zapatista bases of support are going to share the little we have learned about the struggle for freedom, and the compas of the Sixth can see what is useful or not for their own struggle
This class in the little Zapatista school, as you now know, is called “Freedom according to the Zapatistas,” and it will be given directly by compañeros and compañeras who are bases of support of the eezeelen, who have carried out the various tasks of government, vigilance, and other diverse responsibilities in the construction of Zapatista autonomy.
In order to be admitted to the little school, in addition to being invited, the compas of the Sixth and special invitees will need to take a few preparatory, previous, or propaedeutic courses (or however you say what comes before kindergarten), before passing into “first grade.” These courses will be given by compas from the support teams of the EZLN’s Sixth Commission and have as their only objective to give you the basic elements of neo-Zapatista history and our struggle for democracy, liberty, and justice.
In geographies where there aren’t compas from the support teams, we will get you the syllabus so that all invitees can prepare.
The dates and times, that is, the calendars and geographies in which the courses will be given by the Zapatista bases of support, will be announced in the appropriate moment, always carefully taking into account the situation of each individual, group, or collective invitee.
All of the invitees to the course will receive it, no matter if they can come to Zapatista territory or not. We are studying the possible forms or ways to reach your hearts, whatever your calendar and geography may be. So don’t worry.
Okay then. Cheers, now just prepare your heart, and, of course, your pencils and notebooks.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
SupMarcos.
Mexico, February of 2013.
P.S. THAT GIVES LESSONS IN MANNERS. This seventh and final part of the series “Them and Us” consists of various parts and is ONLY for the compas of the Sixth. Along with part V (which, as its numeration indicates, is called “The Sixth”) and the last of part VI. The Gazes 6: We are He,” form part of the private correspondence that the EZLN, through its spokespeople, directs to the compas of the Sixth. In each of these parts, as in the present writing, we clearly signal to whom the texts are addressed.
For those who are not compas and try to mock, enter into polemics, argue, or respond to these texts, we remind you that reading or commenting on the correspondence of others is what is done by gossipers and/or police. So you should keep track of what category you’re in. In addition, your comments only reflect a vulgar racism (you’re so critical of TV and yet you merely repeat its clichés), and reiterate your lack of imagination (which is a consequence of lack of intelligence… and laziness about reading). Although, of course, you will have to broaden your silly little chant of “marcos no, ezln yes” to “marcos and moisés no, ezln yes,” and then later, “CCRI-CG no, ezln yes.” Later on, if you hear the direct word of the Zapatista bases of support (which I doubt will happen), you will have to say “ezln no, ezln neither”), but it will already be too late.
Oh don’t be sad. When we put up music videos by Ricardo Arjona, Luis Miguel, Yustin Bibier or Ricky Martin, you can feel interpellated. Meanwhile, stay seated, keep looking at the calendar from above (those 3 or 6 years pass quickly), move a little to the right (as you are accustomed to doing), and step aside a little, we don’t want to splash [implicate] you…
¡Órales razaaaaaa! ¡Y venga a darle al baile! ¡Ajúa!
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Watch and listen to the videos that accompany this text:
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2013/02/19/ellos-y-nosotros-vii-ls-mas-pequens/
“La Estrella del Desello” with Eulalio González El Piporro. The track appears also as a shorter version, in the film “La Nave de los Monstruos” (1959, by Rogelio A. González). It doesn’t have anything to do with the eezeelen, I put it here out of stubbornness, and to greet the compas of the north: don’t give up, even though you’re far away, we’re going to include you in our gaze. ¡Ajúa!
“La Despedida” with Manu Chao and Radio Bemba, in an indigenous Zapatista community.
“Brigadistak” with Fermín Muguruza. In the struggle against Power, there are no borders! ¡Marichiweu! (We will win a thousand times, in Mapuche)
********************************* Traducción del Kilombo Intergaláctico. *********************************
EZLN: Sup Moisés: GAZES, Part 6 “We Are He”
THEM AND US VI.
GAZES Part 6: WE ARE HE
ZAPATISTA NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY
MEXICO.
February 14, 2013.
To: The Adherents of the Sixth all over the World.
From: Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.
The time has come, and its moment too. There are times that all human beings experience, good or bad; one is born, comes into the world, dies, and is gone. Those are times. But there is another time, in which one can decide in what direction to walk, a time when the time arrives to look at time. That is, when one can understand life, how life should be, here in this world, and that no one can be the owner of that which makes up the world.
We were born indigenous and we are indigenous. We know that we came into the world and that we will leave this world, that is the law. We began to walk through life and we realized that we as indigenous people were not doing so well, we saw what happened to our great great great grandfathers and grandmothers, that is, in 1521, in 1810, and in 1910, that we were always used, that we gave our lives so that others could take power, that once in power they forgot about us again and went back to disrespecting, robbing, repressing, and exploiting us.
And we encountered a third time. The third time is where we are now, for a while now we’ve been walking, running, learning, working, falling, and getting back up. This is important because one has to record, to fill a tape that can be reproduced later with more lives from other times. Yes, we have been left a full bag of tapes, even though some of us aren’t here anymore. So others continue on and the process moves forward like that, and what is yet to come is yet to come, until we get to the end and we begin that other work of construction, where another world begins to be born, where they cannot screw us over again and where we are not forgotten as original peoples, we will not allow that again. Now we have learned. We want to live well, in equality, in the city and the countryside, where the people of the city and the people of the countryside rule and the government obeys, and if it doesn’t, it gets kicked out, and another is instituted.
Yes, we are indigenous, we work mother earth, we know how to use tools to harvest the fruits that she provides. We are various peoples with distinct languages. My mother tongue is Tzeltal, though I also understand Tzotzil and Chol, and I learned Spanish in the organization, with my compañeras and compañeros. And now I am what we are, together with my compañeros I have learned what it is that we want in order to live in a new world.
-*-
I write this in the name of all of the Zapatistas, since the Sup’s computer is broken. I saw that he went to get it fixed, and when I asked him what happened to his computer he said the zuich [switch] is fucked up. Ah, I said. He was carrying a chisel and a 5-kilo sledgehammer. That thing is done, I said, it can’t be fixed. So he told me that I should write to you so that you can start to get to know who is responsible for our door, and also so that we start getting to know you through what you write and say to us from everywhere, and what you tell us and have told us as compañeras and compañeros of the Sixth.
I know a little about typing on the computer and somebody gave me one to practice on a while back. Now it’s time for me to write as well, but I’m a little worried that the same thing that happened to the Sup’s computer will happen to me. I have a solution though, a swing of the axe and done, on to pen and paper. Problem solved.
In any case, I have to tell you that the task of peering out the window, which falls to Supmarcos, isn’t finished. That is, what is to come is yet to come, but it will remain pending until the Sup’s computer gets fixed.
Yes, the Sup’s job will be peering out the window at those who watch us, those who say they are “good” and who fight for the people and who have led the people but haven’t gotten anywhere, and who say it’s because the people don’t understand anything and that they understand everything, but that no one will follow them. Why? That is what they don’t understand, and won’t understand, because they only think about above, look toward above, and try to climb up above.
Well, that, and much more, is the Sup’s work, because he’s in charge of the window, he is like the frame of the window.
It is also his job to see what’s going on with the people who don’t follow those who only look above, to understand why those people are the way they are, what they think, and how they think. We think that maybe those people think like we Zapatistas do, that maybe they too think that it should be law that the people rule and the government obeys.
It is also his job to be the target of the critiques, the insults, and the go-to-hells [mentadas], as he says, and the mockery from those on the outside. But he doesn’t worry about those insults and lies, he just laughs, because, of course, we prepared him for that, we made him into steel. So now those insults and such don’t hurt him, well, yes actually sometimes his stomach hurts from laughing so hard at the things they say.
He tells me that they might start mocking me, or anybody else who speaks, also. But oh well, that’s how it goes, it could be that they make fun of me or insult me, or mock me because I am indigenous, just as they mock him for what he is. But we only care about the people that want to fight to end injustice, so as long as they don’t throw bullets or bombs at us, there’s no problem. And if they do throw those things at us, it also won’t be a problem, because there are already other compañeros and compañeras ready for the work that is and will always be the struggle. That is, we’re ready for anything they throw at us and we’re not scared.
These years, the Sup tells me, many people were blocked from the view of our window, but that one can still tell rather quickly who is like us. He wanted to count how many people like that were out there, but he lost count and just did it our way, the indigenous way, and said, there are a shitload. How much is that? I asked him. Many (masculine), many (feminine), he told me. Ah, I said. So that confirms that there will be many like us and that one day we will say along with them, “this is what we are,” without it mattering who is indigenous or not.
And that’s how we organize ourselves, some do some things and others do other things. For example, now Supmarcos’ job is the window, and my job is the door, and others have other jobs.
And it is during these times that we remember an unforgettable compañero for all of us Zapatistas, SubPedro, who in the last days of December 1993, told us: learn compas, because one day it will be your turn. We are going to struggle together, workers, campesin@s, young people, children, women, men, and older people, in Mexico and around the world. It was the truth then, and it is the truth now, even without him. The truth of the truth began when we began to struggle for the people.
Okay compas, now you know that I am in charge of the door, what we haven’t discussed yet is the new way of working with the compañeros who will come to learn what it has taken my Zapatista compañeros years to build, that which we are now.
-*-
Because we believe and trust the people, now is the time to do something about the damages that we have seen and endured for so many years, now is the time to join together in our thinking and learning and then to work, to organize. After so much experience we are ready to do this, and that experience will guide us so as not to repeat the mistakes that have gotten this world to this point.
If we don’t follow the thinking of the people, the people don’t follow us. And we only need to look at those who came before us in order not to fall into the same mistakes. To build something truly new will take word, thought, decision, and analysis, proposed by the people, studied by the people, and finally decided upon by the people.
It is like the 10 years that we worked clandestinely, when no one knew about us. “One day they will know us,” we told ourselves and that’s how we kept working all those years. And then one day we decided that it was time to be known. Now that you have known us for 19 years, you can say if what we are doing is good or bad. My compañeros say that they live better now with their autonomous governments. They realize that real democracy happens with the people, and not just every 3 or 6 years [with elections]. Democracy is carried out in each village, in autonomous municipal assemblies and in the zone-wide assemblies that make up the Juntas de Buen Gobierno (Good Government Councils), when each zone that makes up a Junta de Buen Gobierno gets together in assembly. That is, democracy is carried out every day and in every entity of the autonomous governments, alongside the people, men and women. Democracy addresses every aspect of their lives, they know democracy belongs to them, because they discuss, study, propose, analyze, and make the final decision on each issue.
They [the people] ask us, “how would this country and this world be if we organized with other indigenous brothers and sisters, and also with those brothers and sisters who aren’t indigenous?” Afterwards, they give a big smile, as if to answer this question: happiness. They already know the answer, because they hold the results, the work that they are doing, in their hands.
Yes, that’s how it is, it only requires that we organize ourselves as the poor of the city and the countryside without anyone leading us but ourselves and those that we name, and without those who only want to get into a position of power and once in power forget about us. And again and again, another just like them comes and says now this time it’s for real, this time it will be different, and then, the same tricks. They are not going to honor their word, we know that, it’s really not even worth writing about this, but that’s how it is in this country. It is desperate, exhausting, horrible.
We, the poor, know what the best way of life is for us, we know what we want, but they will not leave us be, because they know that we will get rid of exploitation and the exploiters and that we will build a new life without exploitation. This isn’t hard for us to understand, because we know how things need to change, because everything we have lived needs to change. The injustices, pains, sorrows, mistreatments, inequalities, manipulations, bad laws, persecutions, tortures, prisons, and many other bad things that we have endured, we know very well that we will not repeat the ways that have subjected us to these things. As we Zapatistas say, if we make mistakes, then we had better be up to the task of correcting them ourselves, instead of how it is now, where some people make all the mistakes and everyone else pays for it. That is, those who make the mistakes now are the representatives, senators, and bad governments of the world, and it is the people who pay the price.
One doesn’t have to have a lot of education, or speak good Spanish, or know how to read much. We’re not saying those things aren’t useful, but that we can learn enough to do our work, enough to help us organize our work. These things are like tools for the work of communicating. What we are saying is that we know how to make change, we don’t need someone to come with their campaign telling us that he or she is the change, as if we, the exploited, don’t know what change we want. Do you understand what I’m saying, indigenous brothers and sisters and people of Mexico, indigenous brother and sisters of the world, non-indigenous brothers and sisters of the world?
So, indigenous and non-indigenous brothers and sisters who are poor, join the struggle, organize yourselves, lead yourselves, do not let yourselves be led, or keep careful watch over those you choose to lead you, make sure they do the things that you have decided and you will see that things begin taking shape like they have for us the Zapatistas.
Don’t stop fighting, as the exploiters will not stop exploiting us, fight until the end, the end that is, of exploitation. No one will do this for us, no one other than ourselves. We have to take the reigns, take the wheel and take our destiny where we want it to go. In that destiny, the people are the source of democracy, the people correct themselves and keep going. Not like now, where 500 representatives and 228 senators fuck everything up and millions suffer the deadly pestilence and toxicity that result; that is, the poor, the people of Mexico, are those who suffer.
Brothers and sister laborers, we have you in mind and all others who work, we all carry the same smell of sweat from working for the exploiters. Now that my Zapatista compañer@s are opening the door, if you understand what we mean, join the Sixth and learn about the autonomous government of the EZLN. And you also, indigenous and non-indigenous brothers and sisters of the world, we want you to understand us.
We are the principal producers of the wealth of those who are wealthy. Enough! We know that that there are others who are exploited and we want to organize with them, to fight for the people of Mexico and of the world, which belongs to us, not to the neoliberals.
Indigenous and non-indigenous brothers and sisters of the world, exploited peoples, peoples of America, peoples of Europe, peoples of Africa, peoples of Oceania, peoples of Asia.
The neoliberals are those who want to be the owners of the world, that’s what we say, they want to make all capitalist countries into their own ranches, and their overseers are the capitalist governments of underdeveloped countries. And that’s how they’ll keep it, if all of us, as workers, do not organize.
We know that there is exploitation in the world. We should not let the distance between each of us on our side of the world distance us from each other. We should get closer, uniting our thought, our ideas, and our struggle for ourselves.
Where you are, there is exploitation, just as there is for us.
You suffer repression, just like us.
You are being stolen from, just like us, here they have been stealing from us for more than 500 years.
They look down on you, just as they continue to look down on us.
And that’s where we are, that’s where they have us, and that’s how things will continue if we don’t join each other’s hands.
There are many reasons to unite ourselves and give birth to our rebellion and defend ourselves against this beast that does not want to get off of us and that never will if we don’t throw it off ourselves.
Here in our Zapatista communities, our autonomous governments in rebellion and their organized compañer@s are confronting neoliberal capitalism day and night, and we are ready for anything that comes and in whatever form it may come.
These are now facts, this is how the Zapatista compañer@s are organized. It only takes decision, organization, work, thought, and putting things into practice, and then we must correct and improve without tiring, and if we rest, it is in order to gather strength and go forward. The people rule and the government obeys.
It can be done, brothers and sisters, the poor of the world, here is the example of your indigenous Zapatista brothers and sisters in Chiapas, Mexico.
It is time for us to make the world that we want, the world that we imagine, the world that we desire. We know how. It is difficult, because there are those who don’t want this, and they are precisely those who exploit us. But if we don’t do it now, our future will be even harder and there will never be freedom.
That’s how we understand things, and that’s why we are searching, wanting to find each other, know each other, learn from each other and ourselves.
We hope you will be able to come, and if not, we will look for other ways to see and get to know each other.
We will be waiting for you here at this door that it is my job to take care of, here where you can enter the humble school where my compañer@s want to share the little that we have learned, to see if it is of use to you there where you live and work. We are sure that those who are part of the Sixth will come, or not, but in any case they will enter the little school where we will explain what the Zapatistas mean by freedom, they will see our advances and our failures, which we will not hide, but they will do all of this with the best teachers there are, that is, the Zapatista peoples.
The little school is very humble, it has humble beginnings, but for the Zapatista compañer@s it means the freedom to do what we want for what we think is a better life.
We are making this little school better every day, because it is necessary to do so and because it is in practice that we learn and demonstrate how to move forward. That is, practice is the best form through which to learn how to make things better. Theory gives us ideas, but what gives us form is practice, the practice of how to govern autonomously.
It’s like they say: “When the poor believe in the poor, then we will be able to sing freedom.” Only we haven’t just heard this, but we are doing it in practice. That is the fruit that our compañer@s want to share with you. And yes it is true, just think how many bad things the bad governments have done to us and they haven’t been able to destroy us, nor will they be able to, because what is built is of the people, for the people, and by the people. The people will defend it.
There is much I could tell you, but it’s not the same thing for me to tell you as it is for you to see it for yourselves and have your questions answered in person by my compañeros and compañeras who are bases of support. They may answer with difficulty because it will be in Spanish, but the best answer is the practice of the compañer@s, which will be visible and which they are living out.
What we are doing is very small, but it will be very big for the poor of Mexico and the world. Just like we, the poor of Mexico and of the world, are very big, that is, very many, and we need to construct the world in which we will live for ourselves. We know what it is like when the opposite happens, when it is a ruling group that comes to an agreement, and not the people. We have come to understand what it really means to represent, we now know how to do this in practice, by carrying out the 7 principles of rule-by-obeying.
We can now see the horizon, which according to us is a new world, and which you will be able to see and learn from, so as to give birth to a different world, the world that you imagine wherever it is that you might live. We can share our wisdom with each other and create our worlds differently from the way that things are now.
We want to see each other, listen to each other; this is a great experience for us, it will help us to know other worlds and to choose the best of the world that we want.
We need organization, decision, agreement, struggle, resistance, self-defense, work, practice. If there is something missing here, add it compañeros and compañeras.
So, for now, we are deciding how the little school we are making for you will be, we’ll see if there will be enough space. The point is that we are getting ready. And that any compañero or compañera who we invite and who wants can come and see and feel, and even if they can’t come, we’ll find a way to share it.
We are waiting for you compañeras and compañeros of the Sixth.
We are preparing to receive you, take care of you, and attend to you like the compañer@s that we are, like our compañer@s that you are. And we are also preparing for our word to reach the ear of those who cannot come to our home, we will do this with your help.
And of course, we should tell you that this might take awhile, but that, as our brother and sisters of the Mapuche people says: one, ten, one hundred, one thousand times we will win, we will always be victorious.
So, to finish, next time it will be compañero Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos’ turn to talk to you, we’re going to keep taking turns back and forth, he and I, to explain everything to you. Now it is time for you to hear me too, for while I have been doing this work for many years, this is the first time that it is up to me to sign the following lines publicly…
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
For the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee
General Command of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.
Mexico, February 2013.
P.S.- I want to take this opportunity also to tell you that the password for the next parts, which will come from the window that Supmarcos is in charge of is “nosotr@s.” And that’s all, because in the school of struggle you can’t copy off a compa, but rather everyone has to generate their own struggle respecting each other, like the compas that we are.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Translation: El Kilombo Intergalactico
Watch and listen to the videos that accompany this text at:
Vídeo taken in CIDECI, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, in 2009, when today’s Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés was a Lieutenant Colonel. This is just a fragment of various talks that he gave, but I’ll put it here so that you remember that you already know him, and so that those who didn’t see him can meet him. The video is from Agencia Prensa India, from the series “Generando Contrapoderes” (Generating Counterpowers).
A story called “Los de después, sí entendimos” (We who came later understand) dedicated to those compañeros and compañeras who have fallen over the course of our long path. Read by one of our dear “Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo” (Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo), Alba Lanzilloto.
Panteón Rococó with the track “La Carencia,” in a concert in Germany in 2008. Dedicated to all those in all parts of the world who work their asses off and even so, they sing, dance, and dream. To the trampoline with the Panteones!
MARCOS: THEM AND US VI – GAZES, part 5
THEM AND US VI GAZES 5. Gazing into the night in which we are. (From the new moon to the crescent moon)
Them and Us VI Gazes 5.
5. – Gazing into the night in which we are. (From the new moon to the crescent moon)
Many moons ago: under a new moon, brand new, just barely peeking out, barely enough to make shadows below…
We-are-he arrives. Without needing to consult or check notes, his words begin to draw an image of the gazes of those who rule here, and those whom they obey. When he finishes, we look.
The message from the people is clear, short, simple, blunt; as orders should be.
We, male and female soldiers, don’t say anything, we only look, we think: “This is very big. This doesn’t just belong to us anymore, nor just to the Zapatistas. It doesn’t even belong just to this corner of these lands. It belongs to many corners, in all worlds.”
“We must care for it,” we-are-all [feminine] say, and we know what it is that we are talking about, but we are also talking about we-are-he.
“It will turn out well… but we have to be prepared for it to turn out badly, that is our way in any case,” says we-are-all [masculine].
“So then, we have to prepare it,” we-are-all [feminine] say to ourselves, “take care of it, make it grow.”
“Yes,” we-are-all [masculine] respond to ourselves.
“We must speak with our dead. They will show us the time and the place,” we-are-all [feminine] say to ourselves.
We gaze at our dead, below, we listen to them. We take them this tiny stone. We lay it at the foot of their house. They look at it. We watch them looking at it. They look at us and they take our gaze far, far away, beyond where the calendars and the geographies reach. We see what their gaze shows us. We are silent.
We return, we look at each other, we talk to each other.
“We have to prepare far ahead, prepare each step, prepare each eye, prepare each ear… it will take time.”
“We will have to do something so that they don’t see us, and later something so that they do.”
“In any case they don’t see us, or they see only what they think they see.”
“But yes, we will have to do something… It is my turn.”
“We-are-he will take care of what corresponds to the peoples. We-are-all will look out for things, gently, quietly, hushed, as is our way.”
-*-
A few moons ago, it was raining…
“Already? We thought they would need more time.”
“Well yes, but, that’s the way it is.”
“Okay then, think carefully about what we are going to ask: Do they want others to turn and look at them?”
“They do, they feel strong, they are strong. They say that this belongs to everyone, and to no one. They are ready, they say.”
“But, you realize that not only those who are like us will see those who are like us, but that the Bosses from various places who hate and persecute what we are, will also see?
“Yes, we have taken that into account, we know. It is our turn, your turn.”
“Okay then, then it is only a matter of deciding the place and the time.”
“Here,” a hand gestures to the calendar and the geography.
“The gaze that we provoke will no longer be one of pity, of shame, of compassion, of charity, of hand-outs. There will be happiness for those who are like us, but rage and hate from the Bosses. They will attack us with everything they have.”
“Yes, I told them. But they gazed at each other, and this is what they said: ‘We want to see those who we are, to see ourselves with those who we are, even though neither we nor they know that they are what we are. We want them to see us. We are ready for the Bosses, ready, and waiting.”
“When, where then?” Calendars and maps are spread out on the table.
“At night, when winter awakens.”
“Where?”
“In your heart.”
“Is everything ready?”
“Everything is ready, yes.”
“Okay.”
-*-
A few nights ago, the moon sleepless and fading…
“They are ready, that which we look at. The next part will be for other gazes. It’s your turn, we say to we-are-he.
“I’m ready, willing,” says we-are-he.
We-are-all concurs in silence, as is our way.
“When?”
“When our dead speak.”
“Where?”
“In their heart.”
-*-
February 2013. Night. Crescent moon. The hand that we are writes:
“Compañeroas, compañeras y compañeros of the Sixth:
We want to introduce you to one of the many we-are-he that we are, our compañero Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés. He guards our door and through his word the we that we are speaks. We ask you to listen to him, that is, that you look at him and thus see us. (…)”
(To be continued…)
From whatever corner of whatever world.
SupMarcos. Planet Earth. February 2013.
P.S. THAT GIVES NOTICE AND HINTS: The next text, which will appear on the Enlace Zapatista webpage on February 14, the day the we the Zapatistas honor and greet our dead, is principally for our compañeros, compañeras y compañeroas of the Sixth. The complete text can only be read with a password (for which we have given various hints and should be easy to guess) which has already been sent via email wherever we could send it. If you haven’t received it and you can’t figure out the hint (you can find it by reading closely this text and the previous one, “Gaze and Communicate”), you can send an email to the webpage and you will get a response with the password. As we have explained before, the independent media are free to publish, or not, the complete text according to their own autonomous and libertarian considerations. The same goes for whatever compañera, compañero y compañeroa of the Sixth wherever they are. We have no other aim but to let you know that it is you to whom we are talking, and also, importantly, those to whom you decide to extend our gaze.
========================
To read the videos that accompany the text:
“B Side Players” from San Diego, Califas, with the track “Nuestras Demandas” (our demands). “B Side Players” is composed of Karlos “Solrak” Paez – voice, guitar; Damián DeRobbio – bass; Luis “El General” Cuenca – percussion and voice; Victor Tapia – Congas and percussion; Reagan Branch – Sax; Emmanuel Alarcon – guitar, cuatro puertorriqueño, and voice; Aldo Perretta – charango, tres cubano, jarana veracruzana, ronrroco, cuatro venezolano, kena, zampoña; Russ Gonzales – tenor sax; Mike Benge – Trombone; Michael Cannon – drums; Camilo Moreno – congas and percussion; Jamal Siurano – alto sax; Kevin Nolan – trombone and trumpet; Andy Krier – keyboard; Omar Lopez – base.
From Galicia, Spain, the track “EZLN” from the group “Dakidarría,” composed by: Gabri (guitar and lead vocals); Simón: (guitar and vocals); Toñete: (trombone); David: (base and vocals); Juaki: (trumpet and vocals); Anxo: (baritone sax); Charli: (keyboard); Jorge Guerra: (drum set)
A very special version of the “Himno Zapatista” (Zapatista Hymn) music and voices from “Flor del Fango.” The musical group “Flor del Fango” was composed of: Marucha Castillo – vocals: Napo Romero – vocals, guitar, charango and quena; Alejandro Marassi – bass, vocals, choir and guitarrón; Danie Jamer “el peligroso” – flamenco, folk, and electric guitars and cuatro; Sven Pohlhammer – electric, sinte, and electric acoustic guitars, Cavaquinho y Mandolina; Philippe Teboul “Garbancito” – vocals, drum set, percussion, choir; Patrick Lemarchand – drum set and percussion; Martín Longan – conductor.
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Traducción del Kilombo Intergaláctico.
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MARCOS: THEM AND US VI. – GAZES, Part 4
THEM AND US VI – Gazes 4
4. – Gazing and Communicating
I am going to tell you something very secret, but you are not going to go around divulging it… or yes, there you see it.
In the first days of our uprising, after the ceasefire, there was a lot of noise about the ezetaelene. [1] It was, of course, all media paraphernalia that the right usually puts out to impose silences and blood. Some of the arguments that they used then are the same ones they use now, which shows the not-so-modern that is the right and the paralysis of its thinking. But that is not the theme now; nor is it about the press.
But good, now I tell you that at that time they started to say that the EZLN was the first guerrilla of Century XXI (yes, we who were still using the hoe for sowing the land, the yoke of oxen –without offending- we knew from stories, and we only knew about the tractor in photographs); that Sup Marcos was the cybernetic guerrilla that, from the Lacandón Jungle, launched into cyberspace the Zapatista proclamations that would travel around the world; and that he had satellite communication for coordinating the subversive actions that were being carried out all over the world.
Yes, that was being said, but… compas, even on the eves of the uprising, the “Zapatista cybernetic power ” what we had was a computer that used the large floppy discs and had a DOS operating system version minus one point one. We learned to use it with one of those old tutorials, I don’t know if they still exist, which were telling you what key you must press and you heard a voice that said, with a Madrid accent, “Very good!“ and if you were wrong it said “Very bad, idiot, try again!“ Besides using it to play Pacman, we used it for the “First Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle,” which we reproduced on one of those old dot matrix printers, which made more noise than a machine gun. The paper was a roll and it got clogged up every time, but it had carbon paper and we achieved printing 2 every several hours. We made un chingo (a whole lot) of impressions, I think like 100. They were distributed to the 5 groups of command that, hours later, would take over 7 municipal headquarters of the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas. In San Cristóbal de Las Casas, which was the one that it fell to me to take over, the plaza surrendered to our forces, we were attaching them with masking tape (or however it’s said) the 15 that we had. Yes, I already know that the numbers don’t come out, that there should have been 20, but we didn’t know where the 5 remaining ones were.
Good, when we withdrew from San Cristóbal, in the early morning of January 2, 1994, the damp fog that covered our withdrawal, detached the proclamations from the cold walls of the haughty colonial city, and some stayed cast in the streets. Years later someone told me that anonymous hands had taken some off and they were jealously guarded.
The Cathedral Dialogues came later. Then I had one of those portable and lightweight computers (it weighed 6 kilos without the battery), La Migaja (The Crumb) brand, with 128 of ram, I mean 128 kilobytes of ram, hard disc of 10 megabytes, in other words that could store everything, and a speedy processor that, you turned it on, you left to prepare a coffee, you returned and you could even reheat, 7 times 7, the coffee before being able to start writing. A beautiful machine! To make it function in the mountain, we used a current inverter connected to a car storage battery. Later, our Zapatista department of high technology, designed an artifact that made the computer function with “D” batteries, but it weighed more than the computer and, I suspect, had something to do with the fact that the pc would go down in a blaze of fire, indeed very showy, and a cloud of smoke that scared away the mosquitos for the next 3 days. The satellite telephone with which the Sup was communicating with “international terrorism?” A walkie–talkie with a maximum reach of 400 meters on flat land (over there, photos of the “cybernetic guerrilla” were still going around ha!). Just like the internet? In February 1995, when the federal army was pursuing us (and not exactly for an interview), the portable pc was cast into the first stream that we waded through, and the communiqués from that era were made on a mechanical typewriter that the ejido commission loaned us in one of the towns that protected us.
That was the powerful high technology equipment that we, the “21st Century Cybernetic Guerrillas,” had then.
I truly lament if, besides my already battered ego, I destroy any illusions that later grew over there, but that’s how it was, that’s how I tell them now.
Finally, a while later we knew that…
A young student in Texas, USA, perhaps a “nerd” (as you would say), made a web page and put just “ezln“ on it. That was the ezln’s first web page. And this compa began to “put” there all the comunicados and letters that were made public in the written press. People from other parts of the world who found out about the uprising through photos, videotaped images, or because of journalistic notes, were looking there for what our word was.
We never met that compa. Or perhaps we did.
Perhaps he arrived sometime in Zapatista lands, as one more. If he came, he never said: “I am the one that made the ezln page;” nor: “thanks to me they know about you in many parts of the world.” Much less “I come so that you thank me and pay me homages.“
He could have done it, and the thanks would always have been not much, but he didn’t do it.
And it’s that perhaps you don’t know it, but there are people like that. Good people that do things without asking anything without asking for anything in return, without charging for them, “without making noise” as we, the Zapatistas.
Now then the world continued turning. Compas came that really knew about computers and then they made other pages and we are like we are now. In other words, with the bad little server that doesn’t pull like it should, although we sing and dance “el moño colorado” [2] to the rhythm of the cumbia-corrido-ranchera-norteña-tropical-ska-rap-punk-rock-balada-popular.
Also without making noise, we thank that compa: that the very first gods and/or the supreme one in which he may believe or doubt or disbelieve, bless him.
We don’t know what may have come of that compa. Perhaps he is an Anonymous. Perhaps he continues surfing on the Internet, looking for a noble cause to support. Perhaps he is scorned because of his appearance, perhaps he is different, perhaps his neighbors, his compañeros at work or study, see him badly.
Or perhaps he is a normal person, one more of the millions that walk the world without anyone noticing them, without anyone gazing at them.
And perhaps he manages to read what I tell you, and he may read what we now write to him:
“Compa, there are schools here now where before only ignorance grew; there is food, not much but dignified, at the tables where only hunger was the daily invitee; and there is relief where the only medicine for pain was death. I don’t know if you expected it. Perhaps you knew it. Perhaps you saw something about the future in those words that you re-launched into cyberspace. Or perhaps not, perhaps you only did it because you felt that it was your duty. And we Zapatistas know duty well; it is the only slavery that is embraced by one’s own will.
We learn. And I’m not referring to learning the importance of communication, or knowing the modes of the information sciences and techniques. For example, outside of Durito, none of us has been able to resolve the challenge of making a tweet communiqué. Before the 140 characters, not only am I useless, tan dropping and re-dropping in the commas, (the parenthesis), the suspending points… and my life is going away and I lack characters. I believe that it is improbable that I can do it some day. Durito, for example, has proposed a comunicado that adjusts itself to the tweet limit and that says:
123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 1234567890
But the problem is that the code for deciphering the message occupies the equivalent of 7 volumes of the encyclopedia “The Differences,” which all humanity has been writing since it began its sorrowful walking on Earth, and whose edition has been vetoed by the Power.
No. What we learned is that there are people out there, far or near, who we don’t know, who perhaps don’t know us, who are compas. And it’s not because they have participated in a march of support, have visited a Zapatista community, wear a red paliacate on their neck, or have signed a display, an affiliation paper, a membership card, or however you say it.
It is because we Zapatistas know that just as the worlds are many in the world you inhabit, the forms, manners, times and places are also many for struggling against the beast, without asking for or expecting anything in return.
We send you an embrace, compa, wherever you are. I am sure that now you can answer the question that one asks himself when he starts to do something: “is it worth the pain?”
Perhaps then you find out that in a community or in a barracks, a Zapatista computer room it is called “him,“ like that, with small letters. And perhaps you then find out that, if any of the persons invited come upon the room, took note of the sign, and asked who was that “him,“ we answer: “we don’t know, but he does.”
Vale. Health and, yes, it was worth the pain, I believe.
From etcetera, etcetera.
We Zapatistas of the ezetaelene dot com dot org dot net or dot however you say it.”
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And all that gets to the point, or thing, depending, because you have perhaps realized that we have trust in the free and/or libertarian media, or however you say it, and the persons, groups, collectives, organizations that have their own modes for communicating; persons, groups, collectives, organizations that have their electronic pages, their blogs, or however it’s said, who give a space to our word and, now, to the music and images that accompany it. And persons or groups that perhaps don’t even have a computer, but nevertheless are talking, or with a flyer, or a newspaper, mural, or graffiti drawing or a notebook or a collective transportation, or in a theater work, a video, a schoolwork, a song, a dance, a poem, a canvas, book, a letter, gaze at the letters that our collective heart draws.
If you don’t belong to us, if you are not our organic part, if we don’t give you orders, if we don’t govern you, if you are autonomous, independent, free (that means that you govern yourselves) or however it’s said, why then do you do it?
Perhaps because you think that information is everyone’s right, and that it is everyone’s responsibility what to do or not do with that information. Perhaps because you are in solidarity and have the commitment to give that kind of support to those who also struggle, although with other modes. Perhaps it’s because you feel the duty to do it.
Or perhaps it’s because of all that and more.
You will know. And surely you have it written there, on your page, on your blog, in your declaration of principles, in your flyer, in your song, on your wall, in your notebook, in your heart.
In other words, I speak of those who communicate and communicate with others what you feel in our heart, in other words, you listen. Of those who gaze at us and gaze at themselves thinking about us and make a bridge and then discover that those words that you write, sing, repeat, transform, are not those of the Zapatistas, that they never were, that they are yours, and everyone’s and no one’s, and that they are part of a musical score that you don’t know where it’s from, and then you discover or confirm that when you gaze at us gazing at ourselves gazing at you, it is touching on and talking about something bigger for which there is still no alphabet, and that thus is not about belonging to a group, collective, organization, sect, religion, or however you say it, but that is understanding that the path to humanity is now called “rebeldía“ (rebelliousness).
Perhaps, before making the “click” to your decision to put our word in your spaces, you ask: “is it worth the pain?“ Perhaps you ask if you will not be contributing to the Marcos that is on a European beach, enjoying the good climate of those calendars in those geographies. Perhaps you will ask whether you will not be serving an invention of “the beast” for deceiving and simulating rebelliousness. Perhaps you will answer yes the same as the answer to that question of: “will it be worth the pain?” It falls to us to answer to we Zapatistas, and to make the “click” on the computer, to the spray, to the pencil, to the guitar, to the cidi (CD), to the camera, you are committing to us, to the we that answer “yes.“ And then you make the “click” to “upload” or “post” or “charge” or to the initial chord to the first step-color-verse, or however you say it.
And perhaps you don’t know it, although I believe that it’s evident, but they are presently “on strike” as you say over there. And I don’t say it because our page is “down” at times, as if it were in the slam and upon casting itself into the void there was no comrade hand that would alleviate the fall that, if it’s on cement, it will continue complaining without importance to calendar and geography. I point it out because on the other side of our word there are many who are not in agreement and show it; there are so many others that are not in agreement and are not even bothering to say so. There are a few that are indeed in agreement and show it; but there are others much greater than those few that are indeed in agreement and don’t say so. And there is a great big immense majority who are not even aware. It is to the latter that we want to speak, in other words, to gaze, in other words, listen.
-*-
Compas, thank you. We know it. But we are sure that, although we wouldn’t know it, you know it. And about precisely that, we Zapatistas believe, what we’re talking about is changing the world.
(To be continued…)
From any corner in any world.
SupMarcos. Planet Earth. February 2013.
P.D. – Yes, perhaps there is, in the letter to “him,” some clue to the next password.
P.S. THAT CLARIFIES UNNECESSARILY. – Nor do we have a twitter or Facebook account, nor electronic mail, nor telephone number, nor a post office box. Those that appear on the electronic page are for the page, and those compas support us and send us what they receive, just like they send you what we send. For the rest, we are against the copyright, so that anyone can have their twitter, their Facebook, or whatever, and use our names, although, for sure, they don’t represent us. But, according to what they have told me, the majority of them make it clear that they are not who one supposes that they are. And the truth is that we have fun imagining the quantity of insults and insults (that are not minty), that they have received and will receive, originally directed at the ezetaelene and/or the one who writes this.
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Translation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Listen and watch the videos that accompany the original text:
From Japan, the song and choreography “Ya Basta” of Pepe Hasegawa. One supposes that he is present in the prefecture of Nagano, Japan, in 2010. The truth is I don’t know what the mere letter says. I just hope that they are not offenses without mint.
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From Sweden, ska with the group Ska´n´ska, of Stockholm. The song is called “Ya Basta” and forms part of their disc “Gunshot Fanfare”.
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From Sicily, Italy, the group Skaramanzia with the song “To not forget,” part of the disc “La lucha sigue” (The struggle continues).
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From France- “Ya basta – EZLN” with the group Ska Oi. From the disc “Lucha y fiesta” (Struggle and Party).
Translator’s Notes:
[1] ezetaelene – the letters EZLN spelled out in Spanish
[2] “el moño colorado” – The literal translation is “the red topknot.” It is an upbeat song that played over and over again during the Intergaláctica (the 1st Intercontinental Gathering for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism).
MARCOS: THEM AND US VI – GAZES, Part 3
THEM AND US VI. GAZES Part 3 – Some Other Gazes
3. – Some other gazes.
one: A dream in that gaze.
It’s a street, a milpa, a factory, a mine shaft, a forest, a school, a department store, an office, a plaza, a market, a city, a field, a country, a continent, a world.
The Ruler is seriously wounded, the machine broken, the beast exhausted, the savage locked up.
The changes in name and flags didn’t work at all, the beatings, the prisons, the cemeteries, the money flowing through corruption’s thousand arteries, the “reality shows,” the religious celebrations, the paid newspaper articles [1], the cybernetic exorcisms.
The Ruler calls for his last overseer. He murmurs something into his ear. The overseer goes out to confront the masses.
He says, asks, demands, requires:
“We want to speak with the man…”
Doubt crosses his face, the majority of those who are confronting him are women.
He corrects himself:
“We want to speak with the woman…”
He doubts himself again, there’s more than a few “others” who are confronting him.
He corrects himself again:
“We want to speak with whomever is in charge.”
From amongst the silence an elderly person and a child step forward, they stand in front of the overseer and, with an innocent and wise voice, they say:
“Here everyone is in charge.”
The overseer shudders, and the Ruler’s voice during his last scream shudders.
The gaze wakes up. “Weird dream,” is said. And, without the geography
or the calendar mattering, life, struggle, resistance goes on.
S/he only remembers a few words from the odd dream:
“Here everyone is in charge.”
two: Other gaze from another calendar and another geography.
(fragment of a letter received in the eezeelen military headquarters, no date)
“Greetings, Compas.
(…)
My opinion is that everything was really fucking cool. But I do not deny that all of this is in retrospective. It would be very easy to say that I perfectly understood the silence and nothing surprised me. False, I also became impatient with the silence (of course that has nothing to do with what is said about how before the Zapatistas weren’t speaking, I did read all of the denouncements).[2] The issue is that when seen with the advantage of what has already happened, and what is happening, well, of course the conclusion is logical: we are in the middle of a more daring initiative, at least since the Zapatistas’ insurrection. And this has to do with everything, not just with the national situation but also with the international situation, I believe.
Let me tell you what I understood about something which, it seemed to me, was the most significant moment of the [December 21, 2012] action. Of course there are many things: the organization, the militant strength, the show of force, the presence of young people and women, etc. But what really impressed me the most was that they were carrying some boards and that when they arrived at the plazas they made some stages. According to what was said about what went on, many private media outlets, and some of the independent ones, speculated about the arrival of the Zapatista leaders. They didn’t realize that the Zapatista leaders were already there. They were the people who got up onto the stage and said, without speaking, here we are, this is who we are and this is who we will be.
Those who should have been on the stage were there. Nobody has noticed, I think, that moment and, nonetheless, I think, there it is, in a nutshell, the profound significance of a new way of doing politics. That which breaks with all that is old, the only truly new, the only thing that is worth having [illegible in the original] “XXI century.”
The plebeian and freedom-loving soul of those timely moments in history, has been built here without theoretical grandstanding. Rather, with a practical burying. It has been there for too many years to be just a fancy. It is already a long and solid historical social process in the terrain of self-organization.
At the end they picked up their stage, turned it once again into boards, and we should all be a little ashamed and be more modest and simple and recognize that something unexpected and new is in front of our eyes and that we should look, shut up, listen, and learn.
Hugs all around. I hope that you’re all right, all things considered.
El Chueco [Crooked]”
three: “Instructions for what to do in the case… that they look at you”
If someone looks at him, looks at her, and you realize that…
He doesn’t look at you as if you were transparent.
He doesn’t want to convince you yes or no.
He doesn’t want to co-opt you.
He doesn’t want to recruit you.
He doesn’t want to give you orders.
He doesn’t want to judge you-condemn you-absolve you.
He doesn’t want to use you.
He doesn’t want to tell you what you can or can’t do.
He doesn’t want to give you advice, recommendations, orders.
He doesn’t want to reproach you because you don’t know, or because you do know.
He doesn’t look down on you.
He doesn’t want to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do.
He doesn’t want to buy your old car, your face, your body, your future, your dignity, your free will.
He doesn’t want to sell you anything…
(a time share, a 4D LCD television, a super-ultra-hyper-modern machine with an instant crisis button (warning: don’t confuse it with the ejection button, because the warranty doesn’t include amnesia due to ridiculous media stunts), a political party that changes its ideology as the wind blows, a life insurance policy, an encyclopedia, a VIP entrance to the performance or the revolution or whatever heaven is fashionable right now, furniture in small installments, a cell phone plan, an exclusive membership, a future given as a gift from the generous leader, the excuse to give up, sell out, throw in the towel, a new ideological paradigm, etc.).
So…
First. – Rule out if it was a degenerate man or woman. You can be as dirty, ugly, bad, rude, as you want, but, whatever it is, you have this sexy and horny touch that comes from working really hard; and that “that” can awaken anyone’s most carnal passions. Mmm… well, yes, a little hairstyling wouldn’t be too much. If it wasn’t a degenerate man or woman, don’t lose heart, the world is round and it spins, and see below (this list, understand).
Second.- Are you sure that he is looking at you? Couldn’t it be that deodorant ad that was behind you (you, understand)? Or could it be that he’s thinking (him, the one that’s looking at you, understand): “I think that’s how I look when I don’t comb my hair”? If you have ruled that out, continue.
Third.- Doesn’t he look like a cop looking to complete the payment that he has to report to his superior? If yes, run, there’s still time to not lose the cost of the ticket. If not, go on to the next point.
Fourth.- Return his gaze, fiercely. A gaze that’s a mix of anger, stomach ache, annoyance, and the “look” of a serial killer will work. No, that makes you look like a constipated bear cub. Try again. Ok, passable, but keep practicing. Now, he doesn’t flee terrified? He doesn’t divert his gaze? He doesn’t get closer to you exclaiming, “uncle juancho! I didn’t recognize you! But with that gesture…”? No? Ok, continue.
Fifth. – Repeat the first, second, third, and fourth steps. There could be problems with our system (which, of course, is made in China). If you come back to this point again, go on to the next one:
Sixth. – There’s a high probability that you have run into someone from the Sixth. We don’t know if we should congratulate you or send you our sympathies. In any case, what follows that gaze is your decision and your responsibility.
fourth: A gaze at a Zapatista post.
(calendar and geography not specified)
SupMarcos: “You have to hurry because time is running out.”
The female health insurgent: “Hey, Sup, time isn’t running out, people are running out. Time comes from far away and follows its path all the way over there, where we can’t look at it. And we are like little pieces of time, that is, time can’t march on without us. We are what makes time march on, and when we come to an end along comes another and s/he pushes time along for another bit, until it arrives at where it needs to arrive, but we’re not going to look where it arrives but rather others are going to see if gets there alright or if suddenly it couldn’t summon up enough strength to arrive and it has to be pushed again, until it arrives.”
(…)
The female infantry captain: “And why did it take you so long?”
The female health insurgent: “It’s that I was chatting about politics with the Sup, I was helping him to explain well that it’s important to look far away, to where neither time nor gazes can reach us.”
The female infantry captain: “Uh-huh, and then?”
The female health insurgent: He punished me because I didn’t hurry the work and he sent me to the clinic.
(…)
fifth: Extract of the “Notes to gaze upon winter.”
(…)
And yes, all of them got up on the stage with their fists held high. But they didn’t look very well. They didn’t look at the gaze of those men and women. They didn’t look at when they were crossing up [on the stage], they turned their gaze down below and they saw their tens of thousands of compañeros. That is, they looked at themselves. Up there they didn’t look at us looking at us. Up there they didn’t understand, nor will they understand anything.
six: Put your gaze here (or your insults, even if they aren’t minty).[3]
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(To be continued…)
From any corner of any world.
SupMarcos.
Planet Earth.
Mexico, February 2013.
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Listen to and watch the videos that accompany this text.
Daniel Viglietti and Mario Benedetti to a “duet” interpretation of the song “La Llamarada” and Benedetti’s poem “Pregón.” Concert in Montevideo, Uruguay, Latin America, Planet Earth. At the beginning, Daniel takes a moment to recognize all of those who are not on the stage but who make it possible that Daniel and Mario are. Almost at the end, you can hear Mario Benedetti singing, singing to himself, singing to us, and without the calendar and geography mattering, and vice versa.
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Amparanoia plays “Somos Viento.” At one point, Amparo Sánchez says “Ik´otik,” which in tzeltal means “we are the wind (“somos viento).”
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Amparo Ochoa, whose voice still reverberates through our mountains, singing “Quien tiene la voz (Who Has the Voice)” by Gabino Palomares.
Translated from the original Spanish by Kristin Bricker.
Translator’s Notes:
1. Some Mexican newspapers run articles that someone (often a branch of the government) pays for. In the case of La Jornada, the only thing that sets the “paid insertions” apart from genuine news articles is that a “paid insertion” headline is in italics.
2. Referring to the fact that while most media outlets report that the Zapatistas are breaking some sort of silence, they really haven’t been silent. They’ve been sending out a steady stream of denouncements against the government and antagonistic organizations.
3. Play on words that only makes sense in Spanish. “Mentada” is insult, but it also sort of sounds like “menta,” which means mint.
Chiapas Support Committee 