ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION MEXICO February 2019 To: Women in struggle everywhere in the world From: The Zapatista Women Sister, compañera: We as Zapatista women send you our greetings as the women in struggle that we all are. We have sad news for you today, which is that we are not going to be able to hold the Second International[Read More...]
To the Zapatista Army for National Liberation: To the CIG Support Networks: To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion: To the Mexican people: To the peoples of the world: To the media: The peoples, nations, and tribes who make up the National Indigenous Congress and the Indigenous Governing Council proudly salute the 25th anniversary of the armed uprising of the[Read More...]
January 1, 2019 marks the 25th anniversary of the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico. For those of us who remember that day well, it’s hard to believe it was a quarter century ago. It’s been many years since the Zapatista movement was the darling of the international solidarity scene, and many years since I’ve been back to Chiapas. But in the[Read More...]
The full quote by Porfirio Díaz is: “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.” Mexican President Díaz (1876-1880 and 1884-1911) got it at least half right. Mexico has suffered in the shadow of the Colossus of the North, but Mexico is not poor. Mexico is rich in many ways, yet it also has been impoverished. And Mexico has been greatly underappreciated by North Americans.
Dawn had only just broken over the mountains. While most of the women and children on the camping grounds were still asleep, others were already wide awake, huddling together in the first rays of sunlight and drinking coffee. To a casual observer, this place might have seemed similar to any mainstream festival campsite. A distinguishing factor, however, was that there[Read More...]
Women insurgents wearing the Zapatista’s iconic black balaclavas greeted thousands of women from over four dozen countries at the entrance to the Zapatista Caracol in the highlands of Chiapas under a vibrant banner reading “Welcome women of the world.” The insurgents ushered visitors through gates emblazoned with red stars and the letters EZLN into what would be a women-only space[Read More...]
Zapatista women taking notes at ConCiencias. Photo credit: David Meek Below images of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, and a many-headed hydra consuming humanity, sit two groups. To the right, facing a stage, are approximately 200 delegates of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), seated as a homogenous block. Wearing black ski masks, they furiously take notes. To the left, 300[Read More...]
When we learn to come together we are whole
when we learn to recognize the enemy
we will know what we need to know
to learn to come together
to learn to weave and mend.
— Anne Cameron, Daughters of Copper Woman
We find much to agree with in Clifton Ross’s rebuttal of us in Dissident Voice, “The Two Lefts and Venezuela,” as long as you take an extremely broad view of what constitutes the “left.”
Ross’s “left” for sure is not socialist as he colorfully sums up in the final sentence of his article, where he says “the hangman…more often than not, he’s dressed as a socialist.” No need then to expose Ross as masquerading as a socialist. He doesn’t bother to give his “left” a socialist gloss.
While the front pages and TV news reports in Mexico are full of accounts of ghastly levels of corruption and violence that would have boggled the imagination of the most jaded pulp fiction writer, in every corner of the country there are spaces where “you breathe a different air,” as the saying is here.
