3rd International Seminar of Reflexion and Analysis:
Planet Earth: Anti-Systemic Movements
1.A place to share experiences and ways of seeing. The Start.
Jaime
Montejo
San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. At a
political moment marked by the appearance of tens of thousands of women and men
in perfect order and discipline, who, as befits the support bases of a rebel
army, marched in total silence and with fists raised outside the offices of the
bad governments, the "Third International Seminar of anti-systemic
reflection and analysis", is taking place in this city, where various
intellectuals will address topics such as the characteristics of the World
System of Savage Neoliberal Capitalism, and Anti-Systemic Social Movements.
The ‘coloquio’ first took place in 2007, when, after the
death of historian and researcher Andrés Aubry, an international symposium was
held in which he was given the award Doctorado Liberationis Conatus
Causa. In December 2011, the "Second Symposium, Planet Earth Anti-Systemic
Movements" was held, with the participation of intellectuals, academics
and activists; at the second meeting the work of the previous seminar and of
the Worldwide Festival of Dignified Rage (Digna Rabia) was continued, where the
"power (potential) of the poor", the different international
perspectives of the anti-systemic movements, national liberation, indignados
and alternatives, continued to be found, exchanging experiences and ways of
seeing.
From December 29, 2012 until January 2, 2013, the
"Third International Seminar of reflection and analysis, anti-systemic
movements" conference will take place, where you can hear the voices of
women and men. who bring dignified looks and words, speaking of ways, options,
alternatives and stories that they are building; members of the indigenous
peoples of Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, a former Black Panther from the United
States, the Movement for Justice in El Barrio, New York, and attendees from
Puerto Rico, Iran, France and Belgium, among others, will share ways of organizing
struggles which serve to keep alive the hope of building other possible worlds,
in these times when the regional, national and Continental situation is
disturbed and uncertain.
2.Reflections
of and from anti-systemic movements in CIDECI
The words of Luis Villoro and Pablo González
Casanova, two of the most important intellectuals in Mexico and Latin America,
will be heard in the Third International Seminar of Reflection and Analysis,
"Planet Earth: anti-systemic movements", which will start on December
30 2012 and end on January 2, 2013 in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas.
The previous seminars, also organized by
CIDECI-Unitierra in 2010 and 2011, attracted the attention not only of
organized civil society from Mexico and other countries, but also had speakers
who generated profound and important debates about the dynamics and future of
anti-systemic movements. As an example we can mention Boaventura de Sousa
Santos and Fernanda Navarro, who will also attend this time, along with
Mercedes Oliveira, Salvador Campanur from Cherán, Carlos Manso and Xóchitl
Leyva, among others.
This third enceuntro has been preceded by strongest
public mobilization to date of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
(EZLN), just nine days before in Ocosingo, Las Margaritas, Altamirano, Palenque
and San Cristobal de Las Casas, and a communiqué from its General Command, and
will coincide with the 19th anniversary of the armed uprising. In
addition, it is also marked by the recent release of the last detainees from
1DMx, which was achieved through social mobilization.
At this seminar prominent social activists from
America, Asia and Europe, and academics, feminists and activists from different
organizations will also be attending. These include Javier Sicilia,
founder of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, returning from
retirement for his participation, Felix Diaz, respected authority from the Qom
community in Argentina, who recently suffered an attempt on his life,
intellectuals François Houtart and Jérôme Baschet; Sharupi Severino, of the
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, Gustavo Esteva and Silvia
Ribeiro, representatives of the Mapuche people and members of different social
and indigenous movements.
Social movements in Mexico and the world have had a
very active year in 2012, from Mexico to Spain, Bolivia and the United States,
from students to workers, from the Yaquis to the Arab countries and, of course,
the indigenous. Joint reflections begin tomorrow. The live broadcast
can be followed through the independent media, such as Koman Ilel and Radio
Pozol.
3.Social
struggles and alternatives to capitalism, on the 19th anniversary of the
uprising of the EZLN
The possibility of another world is created by the
convergence in our ability to "create and expand free spaces", with
the intensification in the structural crisis of capitalism - the historian
Jérome Baschet.
San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas. Anti-systemic
movements and the creation of a counter-hegemony as alternatves to a world
capitalist crisis are food for thought in the last days of 2012 and early 2013,
as part of the Third International Seminar of Reflection and Analysis,
"Planet Earth: anti-systemic movements ". Organized by CIDECI-Unitierra,
the event is being held for the third consecutive year, as part of another
anniversary of the uprising. This time also calls for a critical analysis of
the interpretations of Baktun 13, the beginning of a new cycle according to the
Mayan calendar.
CIDECI is a non-profit organization, founded in 1989, and
distinguished by promoting the strength and autonomy of indigenous cultures.
One of its main projects is the training of young people from rural indigenous
communities in Chiapas, offering courses that focus on practical needs and
local cultures.
The first table of this third seminar was moderated by
Ronald Nigh. In this space, an overview was given of the social struggle in the
current climate. In his turn, the historian Jérôme Baschet referred to the
possibilities of creating and expanding liberated spaces within capitalist
society. These spaces, he said, are in constant resistance against domination;
the largest and most important examples are the Zapatista autonomous
municipalities. The world we live in is becoming more "unbearable"
and the possibility of another world is enabled because, according to the
historian, of the convergence of our ability to "create and expand free
spaces" with the intensifying structural crisis of capitalism, as well as
the revolt of Mother Earth against the unbridled exploitation of her natural
resources. The French historian, also present at the previous seminars, held
that this other world we want - and which we are building, even in the seminar
itself - is a world of many worlds, a society that breaks the unifying logic of
capital.
In honour of what is known as Baktun 13, which marks the
beginning of a new Maya cycle, Mercedes Olivera, an anthropologist at the
University of Science and Arts of Chiapas (UNICACH), said that this is a time
of the "rebirth of life", with the renewal and continuation of the
struggle, as demonstrated by the silent marches of the Zapatista support bases.
The systemic nature of capitalist domination requires, according to the doctor,
a broad articulation of resistance, with the internationalization of solidarity
- this is what the Zapatistas silence cries out to civil society.
Xochitl Leyva, CIESAS anthropologist, spoke of the
political dispute about the interpretation of Baktun 13, and its appropriation
by the industry of "cultural tourism" and the "neoliberal
multiculturalism" of the globalized world. Then she recalled the various
calendars in which the mobilization of December 21 is inserted, in addition to
the Mayan tradition: the end of the presidential term and the return of the PRI
to federal power, the 15th anniversary of the massacre of Acteal, the
foundation of the EZLN and the 1994 uprising, the emergence of the Force of
National Liberation and the memory of the indigenous uprisings of the colonial
period.
The second session of the 3rd International Seminar
of Reflection and Analysis “…planet earth: anti-systemic movements…” was a
sample of the constellations of resistance constructed all over the south of
the world by indigenous and peasant communities. It was also an opportunity to
expand the perspective of the conflicts and struggles for the land on a global
level. Comrades from the Qom community, and from the Peasant Movement of
Santiago del Estero, Argentina, shared their stories of struggle and
resistance. Their word comes from the south of our Latin America, from miles
away, but is painfully known by Mexican pueblos and indigenous and peasant
communities. These stories reflect many Mexican struggles ( such as those of
the Ikoots and Biniza’a peoples, on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Wirárika of
Jalisco, SLP, and the Rarámuri from the Sierra Tarahumara): their processes of
fighting against the violence from the government and the land owners; their
organization, denouncing and demanding the recognition and practice of their
collective and ancestral rights; and their fight for recovering their land,
revitalizing their culture and strengthening their autonomy-building processes.
Therefore, the Argentine comrades’ word invites us
to globalize our struggles and globalize our hopes.
For more information:
- COMUNIDAD QOM LA PRIMAVERA http://comunidadlaprimavera.blogspot.mx
5.Brief sketch of the afternoon session of the first day of
the 3rd Seminar at CIDECI
December 30, 2012. As if day were night, the full moon of
December 30th came out along with the EZLN communiqués which we all now know
and which have revitalized our hope. Their reading in CIDECI was to close (or
open) with an intensity, which throughout the day the participants at the 3rd
seminar, in one way or another, showed from reflection and from everyday
action: that the struggle of the peoples for their dignity is more alive than
ever, that silence is not an absence but a clear message to the world of
shouts, of advertising at every turn and of spectacle. The message is different
because it is a thunderous quiet serenity, which takes its time in walking (not
running) because it is going far.
Afternoon Session
Ma. Helena Revello y Mirta Coronel
(MOCASE-VC/MNCI-Argentina)
Ma. Helena Revello and Mirta Coronel told us about their
struggle in Santiago del Estero (west-central Argentina), a province which in
1980 saw the discourse of progress arrive with the cotton crop. Ma Elena spoke
first. Eight years after the arrival of cotton, it was more than clear that
progress is equal to dispossession and they sat down to look, in the laws and
the history, for ways to resist and oppose; they began with a basic question:
"do we have the right to fight for our lands?” “We started very small, but by 1990 we were
able to form the Campesino Movement of Santiago del Estero; we set up five
Centrales, which is what Caracoles are called here". One of the first
achievements of the organization was to topple the governor, who had driven the
dispossession and for 50 years had ruled the province. "Today we are more
than 9 thousand campesino families struggling together. We have compañeros who
have fallen, others who are imprisoned, but timely mobilization allows us to
defend and free them. We do not ask the government for anything, we demand our
rights”.
They commented that there is a selective dispossession,
where paramilitaries and police attack isolated people. Even women with babies
are taken to prison for resisting dispossession. In Santiago del Estero
something is very clear to the people "Big businesses have bought the
government, but they not bought us, we defend this land because it has the
blood of our compañeros”. Ma. Helena
closed by saying "for us, every time a compañero falls, a seed
falls".
Mirta told us that in 2005 they thought that other
provinces had similar problems, and in 2005 they created the National
Indigenous Campesino Movement. They told us that they were concerned about the
migration of young people, after the mirage of a better life in the city; they
founded an educational experience in their community and in 2007 founded a
school of agro-ecology. Since that year between 70 and 50 young people have
attended and graduated. Theirs is a Campesino university. Based on the experience
of young producers in the region, and with major policies against
agro-chemicals and for the struggle for the land, this university is not at all
traditional. The movement has 4 FM radio stations because the distance between
the Centrales can be up to 100 km. The compañeras closed by inviting us to
"globalize the struggle, globalize hope".
Arturo Anguiano
Before the compañeras, Arturo Anguiano, who introduced himself
as a marginalised citizen, presented an incisive and corrosive overview of the
current political class in the country and gave us a picture of the political
antagonisms between those of above and below. A politician from above who lives
in his delusion, his lies about there being "freedom of elections, sharing
of power, new rich... etc", while those politically from below suffer
dispossession, exploitation, exclusion, abandonment, etc. And live through the
state policy of nightmare and persecution. "The recent politics of fear
(the war on drugs) has ripped apart the social fabric of the state as the
crisis grows, and the authoritarian regime is renewed. "We are spectators of power, but if we
decide to act autonomously we are criminalized, there is no alternative to the
political parties and this ejects us from the state." In spite of this,
Arthur tells us that everyday resistance has not been contained and the revolt
continues daily; making it grow depends on it being visible and linked. Confronting
the vices of power, we have, on the other hand, the EZ recovering ancestral
forms of self-government and organization. "The fight today is for a
democratic egalitarian utopia."
Felix Diaz
At the start of the afternoon session, Félix Díaz, from
the Qom community in the province of Formosa, north-east Argentina, presented
his experience of struggle. "I am here due to the trust that the community
has placed in me." He told us how the state created a law which titled
land ownership for always, and when the community formed a civil association,
they had to comply with bureaucratic protocols of existence, like payment of
fees and taxes that have little to do with the internal dynamics of a
Community. A clause of that law said that if the civil association had no activity
registered for twenty years, the territory would pass into state hands. For
several years this perverse dynamic enabled the state to plunder and
dsipossess, until the community said ‘basta’ (enough) and in 2010 they set up a
roadblock. Felix spoke of his life of persecution, he and his family, how the
government paid assassins to murder him, and through solidarity he is still
alive; but other compañeros are not, and have fallen in defence of their
territory, like the compañero Roberto Lopez who was killed by snipers in a
community action which sparked protests. Together with his wife, also beaten by
the government, and his son, the community continues to fight for justice.
The paradox is that in Argentina, says Felix, there is a
law, 26160, which recognizes the problems of indigenous peoples and their right
to reclaim any land which is taken from a community through lies and violence.
Nevertheless, the idea of the legal personality of the community as a civil
association, so far, works like a perverse dynamic which allows the state to
simulate one thing and execute another. Felix says that the province of Formosa
has had the same governor since 1983, and they know the government is not going
to return the land taken, but it does not mean they are going to forget that
these lands are theirs. They do not forget because their life, their spirit and
their culture depends on this land to be, to exist. "Our fight is for
those with a heart of flesh, not of coins or stone."
Julio Broca. Unitierra Puebla.
6.On
completion of the first Night panel at the seminar...
DID YOU HEAR IT? It’s the sound of their world ending.
It’s that of ours resurging…..
It seems that the silence sprinkled by the Zapatistas on
the streets of San Cristobal on December 21st has arrived at CIDECI
and is still breathing. Few comments. An announcement: "three communiqués
will be read which were issued today by the Comandancia ..." and then
many, who were walking out, stood still quietly and grasped the voice that
read: "To the people of Mexico ...".
We know a little to whom the CCRI communiqués are directed, and maybe we
knew a little that after the silence, the word was coming, but not when, and it
was today, December 30.
"The EZLN announces its next steps" was the
first communiqué read by a compañero, in which they give more details of the
message of, and the reasons for, the silent mobilization of December 21, how
they are seeing the current political situation and the next actions of the
Zapatistas, who are walking in their Caracol towards the outside; they added
six points announcing that they are back in contact with organizations, groups
and individuals adherent to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón jungle in
Mexico and the world. The sixth point reads: "IN THE COMING DAYS THE EZLN,
THROUGH ITS SIXTH AND INTERNAZIONAL COMMISSIONS, WILL ANNOUNCE A SERIES OF
CIVIL AND PEACEFUL INITIATIVES, TO KEEP WALKING ALONGSIDE THE OTHER ORIGINAL
PEOPLES OF MEXICO AND ACROSS THE CONTINENT, WITH WHOM, IN MEXICO AND THE WORLD,
WE RESIST AND STRUGGLE FROM BELOW AND TO THE LEFT."
Do we not know them? The second communiqué, read by a
compañera, makes an analysis of the politicians "up there," Peña
Nieto and his cabinet, giving data on their corrupt profiles and black records.
Furthermore, it details in 10 points who are NOT Zapatistas. The third
communiqué is a letter to Luis Héctor Álvarez Álvarez, reminding him of all
that is wrong even though he has published a book on indigenous peoples, all he
would have to learn, what he would have to leave and where he would have to go
if he really wanted to know the "Indigenous Heart" included in the
title of his recent book.
The music accompanying
each of the writings can be accessed at http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/
7.Summary of the first session of the second day
(December 31, 2012)
The second day of the
International Seminar of Reflection and Analysis: "... Planet Earth:
Anti-systemic Movements ..." began with an expectant and cheerful mood
among the compañeros attending. The communiqué and letters of the CCRI-EZLN
which were made public - and read - at
the end of the session last night renewed and strengthened the relevance of
this encuentro, and the reflections which we have shared here.
The compañeros Emory Douglas,
former Black Panther from the US, and the Movement for Justice in El Barrio
from New York shared their struggles in the marginalized urban zones of the
United States. These experiences were counterpointed by the theoretical
analysis of the Belgian Francois Houtart, founder of the Tricontinental Centre
(CETRI: http://148.206.53.231/especiales/231026//html/CETRI.html), who argued with data and maps the multiple crises
of capitalism and suggested some alternatives for building a new world.
For Houtart, the crisis of
capitalism is multiple and is seen in the areas of finance, food, climate and
the military. The financial crisis of capitalism, which burst in 2008, is due
to speculators seeking immediate gains not supported by the real productive
economy. While the overall economic production has decreased since the sixties,
the financial has increased exponentially since 2000. These speculations are
among the causes of the global food crisis. Food prices have increased in
recent years not because of a scarcity, but because of the management of the
global market. The food crisis is accelerating due to the expansion of crops to
enable the production of agro fuels to meet 20% of the excessive energy
requirements of the North of the world; for this reason more than 60 million
campesinos are dispossessed and driven from their lands (for more information: http://rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=91244). To continue with this addiction and the current energy wastage will
worsen the global climate crisis.
Given this diagnosis of the
crisis of the system, Houtart raises four points for building alternative
paradigms: 1. Transform our society's relationship with nature, moving from
exploitation to respect; 2. Rebuild a social economy according to the real
needs of society; 3. Broaden democracy through the organization of collective
life; 4. Modify reality through an intercultural momentum towards an ethical
and political perspective built from diversity. (Francois Houtart - More
articles in: E7ois http://alainet.org/active/show_author.phtml?autor_apellido=Houtart&autor_nombre=Fran%)
The Movement for Justice in El
Barrio from New York is an organization of Mexican migrants who are adherents
to the Other Campaign and fight against displacement in East Harlem, their
barrio (neighbourhood). Their experience is highlighted by the promotion of the
Zapatista mode of struggle in an urban setting. They also explained their
struggle for the liberation of lesbians, migrants, women, multiculturalism and
all marginalized people. (More information at: http://bit.ly/UF1ezf).
8.Day 2 morning session; Synthesis by the Floating Lens
Collective from Querétaro
Emory Douglas (ex-Black Panther - USA)
"Before we were you and I, we were an us and we were
one" (Meres-sia)
"All power to the people", are you listening?,
was the cry in the 60s and 70s from "The Black Panther Party", the
symbol of fighting that erupted in the south which monitored capitalism in an
age when being black and poor was a crime, when the Democratic Party took
advantage of the illiterate to legitimize its power; it was then that the
panther arose, the white world turned and succumbed, to the struggle from below
to defend community organization against police repression. Promoting schools
with critical elements within communities of Oakland with lessons linked to
their [own] reality, improving on the "formal" education in North
America.
Promoting feeding programmes in schools, churches and
houses for the people and communities, which were supplied by the party
supporters, benefiting families who were marginalized in a country awash with
hatred for those with a dark skin, but a dignified struggle. Mounting health
clinics which gave tests for anaemia and diseases affecting the community at
the time, with these steps the strong learning objective was to show that the
bad government had never cared to defend the people.
And within the party, not only men participated, a
fundamental and a significant majority were women, who were present both in
community work and at assemblies held within the communities. One of them even
performed the simple act of sitting in the front of a public transport, which
she had no right to do. With this explosion against racism, other struggles
were joining like the Asian Red Guard and the Chicano and Chicana Brown Berets,
creating a great force to cry at the Yankee government: "Out of the
ghetto", "Out of America", "Out of Asia", "Out of
our homes".
Francois Houtart (Belgium)
"On 1 January 1994 there was a cry that came out of
Chiapas and for 20 years cries have been heard around the world (...) this was
an announcement that the system does not work for Mother Earth or for
humanity". Capitalism has been responsible for destroying everything in
its path, it has claimed the lives of men and women in every corner of the
world, little by little it is destroying natural resources, and all that has
life. The relentless fluctuation of the system
arising from "economic downturns", finding within natural
resources a wealth which one day will be exhausted, but the small group of
businessmen and privatizers do not understand, creating a food crisis with
associated issues, starting to overexploit some grains such as rice, wheat and
soya beans, raising the price of food and privatizing land.
Bringing the system to an energy crisis which in a few
years will exhaust the [resources of] oil, gas, gold and silver; dragging the
modern world into something which cannot be reproduced naturally, transforming
the world of energy into biofuels, ravaging the water and air, and [leading to
a] loss of food sovereignty.
What to do about it?
We must build and propose, because this logic of
development must be exterminated, we must overcome it, because, even though
capitalism has tried to end Utopias, is our duty to build and rebuild new
forms, new concepts, built with multiculturalism, with all the cultures, to
find alternatives whose premise is the common good; in this way the system will
be forced to change.
Movement for Justice in El Barrio, New York
From the navel of capitalism, where it seems that the
only sound that exists is the factories, cars and the background music in
supermarkets, there is a cry which comes from New York, from the barrio ...
FROM ANOTHER BARRIO.
This movement is composed mainly of Mexican migrants who
live in New York. They are adherents to the Other Campaign.
ANOTHER WORLD, ANOTHER BARRIO, BELOW AND TO THE LEFT.
The movement arose when there was an attempt to evict
several families from El Barrio-New York, after the approval of the "river
to river" programme, which aimed to knock down those buildings to build
luxury apartments, and of course leave the poorest people homeless. Based on
this experience, when capitalism tried to bite the feet of those without shoes,
they would not allow it and started organizing, and succeeded in setting up 72
committees, one for each building.
In 2005 they adhered to the Other Campaign, trying, - in
the words of old Antonio - to care for the words: Justice, democracy and
freedom, in order to live with dignity; this is how they recreated Zapatistmo
in an urban setting: they hold ‘consultas’ among neighbours and at a community
level, the people decide and the community have a voice and a vote.
After holding the ‘consultas’, they realized that the community
was concerned about three problems, which were considered as the main ones, and
they began to perform collective work and hold meetings to resolve them, and as
an other way of doing politics, and an other way of listening to the various
struggles that exist.
From New York, these compas show us that another world is
possible, their example is an example of a local struggle, which is what the
Zapatistas are inviting us to do ... Are you listening?
9."Before
we were you and I, we were us and we were one" (Day Two of the Seminar)
San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas. The
second day of the seminar "Planet Earth: anti-systemic movements"
brought experiences of struggle from North America
through presentations by Emory Douglas, former member of the Black Panther Party, and a representative of the Movement for Justice in El Barrio from New York.
Black Panthers: history of struggle
Emory drew a picture of the segregation suffered by black people in the United States and of the resistance constructed by them throughout the country. In the sixties and seventies, the Democratic Party took advantage of the majority of the population being illiterate to stay in power, using as a symbol the figure of a rooster. In response, the poor black population organized using the symbol of the Black Panther, in defence of their rights and citizenship.
The Black Panther Party went on to organize from below solutions to the problems caused by the neglect and segregation they were suffering. Examples included health
clinics, feeding programmes for those unable to buy food, and schools in the communities of Oakland, with a curriculum based on enabling critical thinking and related to the reality experienced by the students. The former Black Panther also recalled the important role of women, who were often the majority in community projects and assemblies. One of them [Rosa Parkes], Emory said, was the protagonist for the mobilization of the entire movement for the rights of black people, when she sat in the
front of a bus which was then reserved for whites, and refused to leave.
The Other Campaign in New York
A representative of the Movement for Justice in El Barrio, New York, a movement adherent to the Other Campaign, screened a video-message about the processes of
resistance carried out in the city of New York, especially by Mexican migrants. The video is based on the principle that "the struggle for another world has no
boundaries" and shows the strategy of popular organization of this movement in the search for solutions to the problems they face in their daily lives, such as threats of
dispossession, homelessness, discrimination, and unemployment, among others.
Influenced by Zapatista strategy, the population organized in local committees and discussed their problems through assemblies, which united the community in the
search for solutions from below to their problems. At a time of coming together to discuss the ending of the Mayan calendar cycle and the beginning of a new era, a
Mexican migrant compañera testified in the video shown, saying that their struggle is also for a new calendar, "below and to the left", which respects the time of life and
not the time of money.
A "casino economy"
The Belgian sociologist François Houtart drew an analysis of the crisis in the process of capitalist production. He highlighted the contradiction between the falling of the
real productive economy as opposed to the rise of fictitious capital, based on speculation. It is, he says, a "casino economy". As an example of this scenario, he cited the increase suffered in recent years in the price of staple foods such as maize and beans. This increase is not due to a shortage in the market, but to speculative games.
Houtart said that in a world in which 20 percent of the population has 83 percent of all the existing wealth, it is left to the rest to organize and fight for another world. To
think about this, he rescued ideas such as the "common good", the transformation of social relations and the commodification of nature and the goods necessary to live.
Throughout the presentations, solidarity between struggles was frequently mentioned. One case was the opening of the session with the reading of a poem written by Meres-Sia, daughter of Emory. In the text, she recalled a time before countries and borders, when things were different: "Before we were you and me, we were us and we were one."
http://desinformemonos.org/2013/01/antes-que-fueramos-tu-y-yo-eramos-un-nosotros-y-eramos-uno-solo/
through presentations by Emory Douglas, former member of the Black Panther Party, and a representative of the Movement for Justice in El Barrio from New York.
Black Panthers: history of struggle
Emory drew a picture of the segregation suffered by black people in the United States and of the resistance constructed by them throughout the country. In the sixties and seventies, the Democratic Party took advantage of the majority of the population being illiterate to stay in power, using as a symbol the figure of a rooster. In response, the poor black population organized using the symbol of the Black Panther, in defence of their rights and citizenship.
The Black Panther Party went on to organize from below solutions to the problems caused by the neglect and segregation they were suffering. Examples included health
clinics, feeding programmes for those unable to buy food, and schools in the communities of Oakland, with a curriculum based on enabling critical thinking and related to the reality experienced by the students. The former Black Panther also recalled the important role of women, who were often the majority in community projects and assemblies. One of them [Rosa Parkes], Emory said, was the protagonist for the mobilization of the entire movement for the rights of black people, when she sat in the
front of a bus which was then reserved for whites, and refused to leave.
The Other Campaign in New York
A representative of the Movement for Justice in El Barrio, New York, a movement adherent to the Other Campaign, screened a video-message about the processes of
resistance carried out in the city of New York, especially by Mexican migrants. The video is based on the principle that "the struggle for another world has no
boundaries" and shows the strategy of popular organization of this movement in the search for solutions to the problems they face in their daily lives, such as threats of
dispossession, homelessness, discrimination, and unemployment, among others.
Influenced by Zapatista strategy, the population organized in local committees and discussed their problems through assemblies, which united the community in the
search for solutions from below to their problems. At a time of coming together to discuss the ending of the Mayan calendar cycle and the beginning of a new era, a
Mexican migrant compañera testified in the video shown, saying that their struggle is also for a new calendar, "below and to the left", which respects the time of life and
not the time of money.
A "casino economy"
The Belgian sociologist François Houtart drew an analysis of the crisis in the process of capitalist production. He highlighted the contradiction between the falling of the
real productive economy as opposed to the rise of fictitious capital, based on speculation. It is, he says, a "casino economy". As an example of this scenario, he cited the increase suffered in recent years in the price of staple foods such as maize and beans. This increase is not due to a shortage in the market, but to speculative games.
Houtart said that in a world in which 20 percent of the population has 83 percent of all the existing wealth, it is left to the rest to organize and fight for another world. To
think about this, he rescued ideas such as the "common good", the transformation of social relations and the commodification of nature and the goods necessary to live.
Throughout the presentations, solidarity between struggles was frequently mentioned. One case was the opening of the session with the reading of a poem written by Meres-Sia, daughter of Emory. In the text, she recalled a time before countries and borders, when things were different: "Before we were you and me, we were us and we were one."
http://desinformemonos.org/2013/01/antes-que-fueramos-tu-y-yo-eramos-un-nosotros-y-eramos-uno-solo/
10.Faced with the crisis, we must completely rethink the
reality of the Earth
Different experiences of resistance and autonomy in the
United States, Puerto Rico and Chile, as well as a call to completely rethink
the human reality, were shared during the second day of the Third
International Seminar of Reflection and Analysis, "Planet Earth:
anti-systemic movements", which took place at CIDECI-University of
the Earth in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas.
Francois Houtart, Catholic priest and Marxist
sociologist, greeted the Zapatista resistance. saying that concerning the
possibility of building another system, there are those
who say and those who do; the Zapatistas belong to the latter, and are an inspiration "to build another world," he added.
who say and those who do; the Zapatistas belong to the latter, and are an inspiration "to build another world," he added.
The Belgian intellectual emphasized that we are at the
end of an era because of the fundamental crisis of capitalism. "The casino
economy will explode one day," said the priest, who explained the
contradiction between artificial financial economics, and the real economy. He
also highlighted mines and monoculture as global problems, and criticized
the irrational use of energy.
Houtart concluded that there is "widespread
resistance against economic inequality and the system which has been built in
the world," and noted that confronted by this crisis in the logic of
development affecting the whole world, "we must find alternatives and not
only rules; we must completely rethink the reality of the Earth and the
human reality".
The history and teachings of the Black Panthers, the
political movement of African-American defence, came to south-east Mexico
through the voice of Emory Douglas, who created many of the graphics and
artworks of this party, which referred to the civil resistance which arose amongst
the organized African American population against racism and
discrimination, to build solutions to their problems and shortages for
themselves.
The Movement for Justice in El Barrio, New York, was
present through the voice of Juan Haro, who presented a video about the
struggle and organization achieved by its 73 neighbourhood committees, and
how they try to integrate this form of struggle into their culture. The
organization also showed how they conduct awareness campaigns about the
problems faced by the Zapatista communities.
Andres Cuyul, of the Mapuche people, presented the
advances in the healthcare of his people, who implement a model critical of the
official one, with political and technical education.
He said that the ethnocide against his people not only
came from the military, but disease and medicine were part of it and of the
invasion. He denounced a "multicultural trap" from the state, which
incorporates Mapuche health workers "to legitimize their biomedical
action" and ignores the exercise of autonomy and the culture of the
Mapuche. In addition, he explained how the State appropriates traditional
medical knowledge.
"In the twenty first century, there is still a
classic colony, and it is Puerto Rico," said the Puerto Rican Maria Ivonne
Soto. The film-maker said that in her country they have defied two great
empires, each in its time: the Spanish and the American, both of which denied
them freedom and committed atrocities against their people. Supported by
images on film, Soto told the story of the struggle for independence of her
people and said, "today we still have political prisoners."
Ivonne read excerpts from letters from the Puerto Rican
Revolutionary Workers Party which were sent, 19 years ago, to the Zapatista
Army of National Liberation, which identified a common enemy and asked,
"Why can we not also globalize solidarity, the exchange of ideas, and love
for humanity?"
http://desinformemonos.org/2013/01/contra-la-crisis-repensar-completamente-la-realidad de-la-tierra/
11.Synthesis
of the First Session of Day 3 (January 1, 2013)
Collective Cracks
Olvera René Salinas
On its third morning, the Third
Seminar of Reflection and Analysis "Planet Earth, anti-systemic
movements" still held the smell of the moon covering the dignity of rebel
Zapatista territory, where a few hours before they were celebrating a long life
and long and short stories. The new era is accompanied by forty-four years
which have passed since the foundation of the Forces of National Liberation,
germ of the EZLN which first met twenty-nine years ago, and nineteen years
since that January of 1994, the time when we began to know the hope of other
geographies.
This time, through the voice of
Gustavo Esteva, we returned to thinking about the challenges the Zapatistas
have set us: to continue building another world, which is already in existence
in several places, but which needs to be widened and radicalized in the
contexts in which we live now. We believe it is useful to highlight some of the
relevant challenges identified by the compañero :
1. To recognize, visualize and
understand the Horror of the abyss into which we are falling and will continue
to fall, at a rate which is unprecedented in the history of our country and
perhaps the world, as "there is no area of our reality which is not
being affected" and "where women have borne and are bearing the brunt".
2. This recognition cannot
stand apart from struggle and organization, the means which we have to confront
the characteristics of the Horror: the absolute dispossession of resurgent
State capitalism globally, even in countries with governments considered to be
of the "Left".
3. The need to deny vulgar
optimism, while recovering the hope we did not expect, since to hope is to die
in the current reality. Therefore, to imagine and do something different from
the Horror is urgent.
4. To begin to understand that
the significance of action is to move, but "not like idiots" without
reflecting on what we want and need to overcome. To do this, an important idea
is to start changing the nouns denoting the Horror into verbs. If education or
health, for example, are full of shit, as ruled by the Horror, verbs like learn
and heal, executed by ourselves, become fundamental, thus focusing the
discussion on asking what is the best way to carry this out collectively in our
territories, building autonomy, as we were taught by our Zapatista compas,
dismantling the apparatus of state and capital, eliminating the need for either
to exist.
Make our own, every day, the
slogan, being aware that in times of Horror "we can only live in
struggle" as stated by the compas of Acteal, and that the struggle is made
by "ordinary men and women, rebels and non-conformists" as pointed
out by the Zapatista compas in their latest communiques.
This morning, in the absence of
Javier Sicilia, who sent apologies for his absence, and with the participation
of Silvia Ribeiro, supporting the face of the Horror in the field of our food,
left the attendees breathing the scent of the potential of a rebel dignity in
all geographies, a scent which calls us to defend Zapatismo with all that that
this implies.
12.Food
sovereignty, gateway to a new politics
With contributions from Gustavo
Esteva and Silvia Ribeiro, the third day of the seminar at CIDECI brought a
discussion about the danger of GM seeds to food sovereignty and autonomy as a
form of resistance to State capitalism.
San Cristobal de las Casas,
Chiapas. This first of January 2013 is
the 19th anniversary of the EZLN uprising in Chiapas, and, with this memory,
the fifth session of "Planet Earth: anti-systemic movements" was held
at CIDECI-Unitierra. Under the mediation of Rocío Noemí Martínez, and with
translations into Tzotzil and Tzeltal, Gustavo Esteva and Silvia Ribeiro gave
presentations on various aspects of the current situation in Mexico and
initiatives in autonomous struggle.
In defence of the people of the corn
Ribeiro warned of the imminent
threat of transgenic corn (maize) to people all over the country. She is a
member of the Network in Defence of Corn, which is composed of a variety of
indigenous and civil society organizations. In her speech, she denounced the
megaproject of the transnational Monsanto to start the cultivation of a
genetically modified variety of corn in a vast area of northern Mexico.
Genetic contamination of native plants by species produced in laboratories
already exists, and will greatly increase with the implementation of this
project, which is done with the connivance of the government.
According to the researcher,
this is a concrete and symbolic attack on Mexico, which is the "genetic
heart of corn" in the world. Contamination acts in the interests of the
monopoly of life itself, manifested by the multinationals which own the patents
of the genetically modified varieties. Farmers are practically forced to buy
seeds from the same companies or pay fines for using plants containing the
patented DNA – even though it is by inadvertent contamination.
Beyond trade and fines, Silvia
said, "corn is not a thing, it is a web of relationships", in which
we are always involved. Corn is an essential part of the subsistence of life of
thousands of communities, it is the heart of their time, of their calendar.
"The defence of the corn," she said, "is to protect the people
of the corn".
The offensive of transnational
capital, allied to the state, weakens through the use of transgenics the
capacity of indigenous communities for autonomous subsistence and food
sovereignty, and directly affects their autonomy and their ability to oppose
the demands and dispossessions imposed by the government.
Autonomy and resistance
Esteva began his presentation
with an overview of the political situation in Mexico. According to him, we are
living in a time of outrage all over the country, which also generates
reflection: we have to ask where does this "dignified rage" come from
and thus "understand and recognize" it. He followed this by speaking
of the deception of the neoliberal paradigm and the rise of what might be
called state capitalism.
However, hope still exists and,
Esteva says, not in public politics or other agents outside ourselves. Hope
lies in our own actions, capable of overcoming the need for the state apparatus
and the capitalist relations that serve it. We need, said the speaker, to move
from nouns - fixed and external - to verbs, of which we are the subject. We
must go, for example, from the abstract and illusory hope in Education, to
studying and learning for ourselves.
Esteva returned to the
contribution from Silvia Ribeiro when he used the example of the importance of
food autonomy, both in the field and on the table. It is necessary to
repeatedly organize autonomous initiatives in every sphere of daily life so as
to create, here and now, that other possible world, that other society that we
want. Reflection is important to locate existing experiences and deepen them;
to learn, says the researcher, "whether the tomatoes we eat are truly
revolutionary or not".
Zapatismo is perhaps the
largest and most concrete experience of struggle and autonomous resistance,
which reveals another way of doing politics: a life and a politics which
already exists - a world already born, but one which sometimes goes unnoticed.
We need only to "open our ears to listen, open our eyes to see it."
13. Hope, the
Foundation of the Social Movements (Day 3 of the Seminar)
The new face of capitalism and the alternatives being
built in the face of the crisis of the system were reflected today in the
contributions from the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), Gustavo Esteva and
Silvia Ribeiro at CIDECI-Unitierra during the third day of the seminar
"Planet Earth: anti-systemic movements".
Gustavo Esteva, founder of the University of the Earth
(la Universidad de la Tierra, Oaxaca), said that in Mexico "we came out of
the neoliberal nightmare to get into a worse one", which will return to
using the state "to protect capital from its own excesses," he said.
In this capitalism we live "in a regression to the stage of absolute
dispossession", called "accumulation by dispossession" said the
intellectual. An example is the sale of 40 percent of Mexican territory to
mining companies. To dismantle the welfare State, he said, they need to
dispense with all democratic practices and traditions, and he explained that
the new face of repression against those who defend their territory, in which
the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is a specialist, is to disguise it
as intercommunity conflict and send in hordes of attackers.
For Esteva, to regain hope is fundamental to the human
species and is the essence of popular movements, "but it is not about
sitting around waiting for someone to pull us forward; we need to be able to
imagine something other than this horror," he said, and "then make
real what we have imagined" immediately. "We must dismantle the state
apparatus by removing the need for it", not keeping it, because it only
serves to enforce repression, he elaborated. And from a list of examples, he
mentioned that "each and every Zapatista school is an autonomous centre of
knowledge production and makes Chuayffet and 'The Master' (Elba Esther
Gordillo) unnecessary".
Gustavo Esteva said that our first duty is to defend the
Zapatistas, because to do so is to defend ourselves. He also emphasized that
"anti-capitalism today is anti-patriarchy", which will not happen by
ending gender quotas but by putting an end to sexism and reinventing a world in
which gender is the basis of social reality. "The good news is that the
women realized this a while ago and took the lead at this time," he said,
and "they are determined to stop the horror and lead us to a new form of
society". For Esteva, we are already in the new world, and "our most
important task is to unblock our ears and open our eyes to learn to recognize
it."
The National Indigenous Congress (CNI) had a space which
was used collectively. Firstly, they dedicated the beginning of their
participation to Don Juan Chávez Alonso, Purhépecha and pillar of their
indigenous organization, who died this year. "May the four elements keep
you", said the speaker. The Nahua people from the Federal District shared
their word by sending a message, where they thanked the EZLN for convoking the
indigenous peoples and forming the CNI, and denounced the continuation of the
politics of exploitation and theft from the government in its different
colours.
The people of Suljaa', who at the moment are focusing
their struggle on their right to speak, sent a message signed by Radio Ñomdaa.
Salvador Torres, from Cheran, brought greetings from the Yaqui people, who
defend their water; from the Wixárika people, who are defending themselves
against mining companies, and he read a letter from the Assembly of the Peoples
of the Isthmus in Defence of Territory, where they explained the imposition
sought by Marena Renovables, the wind energy company, without consulting the
indigenous peoples, and promoting inter-community conflict.
Margaret, the daughter of Don Juan Chavez, and a villager
from Nurío brought greetings from the organized Purhépecha people, and
ratification of their commitment to defend their territory. Another participant
from Michoacán stated that we must change our evil practices against Mother
Earth and among humans. A representative of Las Abejas of Acteal spoke from the
Tzotzil worldview of capitalism, of ‘living well’, and of the need for
resistance. A Chicano who also participated in the space of the CNI said that
they hold very firmly to their indigenous roots, "Maybe we do not have a
space in this nation, but more important is what is from below and to the
left."
The comunero Salvador Campanur, from Cherán, spoke of the
CNI as a space for reflection and interchange among indigenous, allowing them
to think with "the heart and the head" how to exercise their
autonomy; he also ratified their adherence to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón
Jungle. "The political parties make business out of hunger", said the
Purhépecha, and "crime is king in the corporations". The peoples,
tribes and communities are organizing against this. In Cherán, "we
ourselves have taken charge of security and we practice the traditional skills
of self-defence", in addition to fighting for the reconstitution of their
territory, he said.
"The revolution begins when you plant your own
corn", said Silvia Ribeiro in her contribution. Transnationals like
Monsanto threaten the seeds with their intention to "sow genetically
modified seeds in the centre of origin and cultivation of corn", she said.
But besides the GM contamination of native plants and food – already present in
Mexico -, producers will have to pay the companies or go to prison, which would
put them in a position of vulnerability and illegality, the expert explained.
There is also a package of laws to criminalize the free exchange of seeds among
campesinos "and undermine the basis of autonomous and free food systems".
Ribeiro also stressed that industrial agriculture emits
between 44 and 57 percent of greenhouse gases, but only produces 30 percent of
the world's food. The best defence against GMOs "is knowing which seeds
enter the community; most pollution gets in
through government and DICONSA programmes, in addition to air and
insects", said Ribeiro. She ended by saying that we must freely decide
what we want to do and how, creating spaces against the violation of the
commons.
14. Zapatismo is an Option in the
Reform/Revolution Dilemma
**
Right now is a new time, changing the geometry of politics: Pablo González
Casanova
**
The world is confronting a crisis greater than a financial or economic one, he
said at the University of the Earth
**
All voices were present at the seminar of reflection and analysis: Planet Earth
Hermann Bellinghausen,
San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, January 1, 2013
“We
now have the opportunity to organize an immense network of collectives at a
world level in defence of territory, the land and the Earth,” said Doctor Pablo
González Casanova this evening, before a packed auditorium at the University of
the Earth (Universidad de la Tierra) in this city; this was in reference to the
continuing and growing construction of autonomy in the Zapatista communities.
“This is the fundamental task, if we are thinking about the ‘other politics,’
constructed from below.”
The
Zapatista proposal, he continued, “is a new alternative for the old
reform/revolution dilemma” which characterized the debates and struggles of the
Left in the 20th Century. “We are at a new moment, which changes the political
geometry”, to beyond the right-left opposition, “and talking, like the
Zapatistas do, of above and below.”
Broad-spectrum
crisis
González
Casanova maintained that the world is confronting a “broad-spectrum crisis,” much
greater than a financial or economic one. “It’s not cyclical, nor of short or
long duration”, due to the manner of accumulation undertaken by capitalism in
its current phase, which puts the very survival of the world at risk.
He
stressed the latest news about the proposal of a revolutionary alternative,
where the grand transformations led by Lenin and Mao ended in failure. “It has
its origin in the Mexican southeast, which is occupied by the Maya peoples”,
and it represents a “universal project, not just for a new Indianist or Indigenist
policy, but rather one for human emancipation which, as far as possible, will
be peaceful.”
The
Mexican sociologist asked: “What does Cuba and its revolution have, which
allows it to continue standing while other experiences, like the Soviet or
Vietnamese, led to the type of capitalism that currently rules those nations?”
It is “the combination of Marx and Martí,” he ventured. He said that today it
is the experience of Venezuela which has come furthest on the continent, without
ignoring what is happening in Ecuador, Bolivia and Uruguay, which although
insufficient, point to how the current phase of capitalism’s “re-colonization
and dispossession” can be resisted.
While,
in their five Caracols in the jungle and mountains of Chiapas,
thousands of Zapatista support bases celebrated the 19th anniversary of the
uprising of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (Ejército Zapatista de
Liberación Nacional, EZLN) behind closed doors, in this city the third
Seminar of Reflection and Analysis, Planet Earth: anti-systemic movements was
held, where González Casanova participated this evening.
A
banner over the large gate to the Caracol of Oventic, in Los
Altos, said in red and black letters: “Long life to the compañeros adherent to
the Other Campaign in Mexico and the world”. The masked guards
who were there indicated to journalists that only they could register. Two more
banners demanded the immediate freedom of Francisco Sántiz López, EZLN support
base, and Alberto Patishtán Gómez, Other Campaign adherent.
Yesterday, throughout the day, thousands of indigenous arrived at the Caracols in
numerous groups coming from the communities.
Community
Autonomy
At
the same time, the third international seminar has been an echo of the
deliberate silence of the Zapatista March on December 21. Also, it has renewed
the dialogue with civil society and the thinkers who continue as partners of
Zapatismo; now, in the heat of the recent communiqué from the Clandestine
Indigenous Revolutionary Committee, General Command of the EZLN, and the
letters to the recently departed and newly arrived federal government from subcomandante
Marcos, everything confirms the vigour and urgency of the community
autonomy which today, in the mountains of Chiapas, is the most extensive
and long-lived self-managed experience in the world, and one in permanent
resistance.
The
National Indigenous Congress (CNI) expressed themselves fully tonight, endorsed
through the voice of the Purépecha leader Salvador Campanur, from the autonomous
community of Cherán, Michoacán, in what was a space for reflection and the gathering
of all the Indian peoples and nations who walk in autonomy, liberty and
resistance. It was no coincidence that the figure and name of Don Juan Chávez
Alonso, who died some months ago, resonated through the voice of his daughter
Margarita, who arrived here from Nurío, her community, and through the voices
of his other compañeros.
The
Wirraritari of Jalisco were present through their greetings and the reiteration
of their struggle and their defence against the mining companies in the sacred
Wirikuta desert; the Yaqui who defend their river of the same name against the
barbarity of Sonora’s PAN government, and the Amuzgos of Suljaá, Guerrero, in
the voice of their Radio Ñomndaá. The Indigenous Peoples’ Assembly of the
Isthmus in Defence of Land and Territory insisted on denouncing the
colonial-like abuses of the wind energy transnationals that infest the Zapotec
communities of Unión Hidalgo and Juchitán, as well as the Ikoots peoples of San
Dionisio and San Francisco del Mar, in southern Oaxaca. The Spanish (companies)
Mareña Renovables, Femosa and others, through fraud, violation of the peoples’
rights, and backed up by the Oaxacan government, have caused great social and environmental
damage, and threaten to cause even more if the peoples don’t stop them.
Since
its start, the seminar has taken as its course for reflection the condition of
listening: “It is a new time for the peoples’ struggles”, the feminist
anthropologist Mercedes Oliveira said on December 30, at CIDECI-University of
the Earth. Jerome Baschet, Xóchitl Léyva and Ronald Nigh participated, also as
listeners to the silence and the word of the rebels who on New Year’s Day 1994
rose up in arms against the “bad government”, and almost two decades later they
are still in resistance. Now they are announcing new initiatives and actions.
Sylvia Marcos also told of what she heard from the overwhelming silence and
from the bodies of the 40,000 Zapatistas who marched on December 21 in five
Chiapas cities, and afterwards from the EZLN’s most recent words.
In
the same way, Emory Douglas, a historic figure from the US Black Panther Party;
Andrés Cuyul, representative of the southern Mapuche people; the nationalist
Puerto Rican film-maker Ivonne María Soto, and Juan Haro, from the Movement for
Justice in El Barrio of New York, shared their struggles and similarities. The
Belgian thinker François Houtart, in his interpretation of the capitalist
disaster, pointed out that a “generalized resistance exists against economic
inequality and the system that has been constructed in the world”, and that
faced with the crisis in the logic of development, “we must find alternatives
and not only regulations; we must completely rethink the reality of the Earth
and the human reality.”
This
morning, Gustavo Esteva elaborated on this crisis within the crisis of
capitalism and listed a minimum of data from the social, political, economic,
food, environmental and housing “disaster conditions” in which Mexico finds
itself; he urged the consolidation of the ways of autonomy, food sovereignty,
defence of resources and, above all, the need for a free, uncontaminated
thinking, without which the construction of a different world will not be
possible.
A
little earlier, Silvia Ribeiro had mapped the coordinates of the impending
appropriation, by Monsanto and similar companies, of corn and life in México,
“aided” by the reformist enthusiasm of the legislators of all parties who pave
the way for the transnationals and their genetically-modified plants, and to
top it off, with the rights of patent.
Margarita
Chávez Alonso’s thanks to her father for “having taught the path of the EZLN”
to the Michoacán communities summarises well what the CNI and the other speakers
have been saying, at this well-attended international seminar.
15.At Cideci, calls
to move forward from below and to the left
The last session of the seminar “Planet Earth:
anti-systemic movements” closed four days of sharing and reflecting on the new
faces of capitalism and the experiences of autonomy, which, for the whole
planet, are already constructing an alternative.
The time of the word, of rebellion and to take a step
forward
The strength of the campesinos, the transformation of the
struggle of the piqueteros, the collective construction of being Mapuche, and
self-criticism concerning the seizure of power in Ecuador closed the Third
International Seminar of Reflection and Analysis, "Planet Earth:
anti-systemic movements", which began on December 30 2012 and ended on
January 2, 2013 in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, full of greetings and
references to the Zapatista movement.
New winds are leading to a world where there is room for
many of us", said Jean Robert
summarizing the presentations at the seminar. The Zapatistas "are
taking us from the level of normality, the great game of society to adapt and
reproduce capitalist relations, the 'mode of destruction' ", said the
"friend of CIDECI", as he defined himself.
In addition to the political and social shock from the
Zapatista uprising in 1994, the architect recalled the extraordinary wave of
solidarity that was experienced in 1985; he read comments and ideas that were
presented during the four-day seminar on "Planet Earth: Anti-systemic
Movements". He had compiled ideas about capitalism, corn, farmers,
agribusiness, resistance and ‘living well’ which had poured out of
CIDECI-Unitierra.
The strength of the campesinos
Countries with more campesinos have more chances against
the lethal world of today, said Silvia Perez-Vitoria, from France; the
campesinos are an "extremely important" social force. The struggle in
this field is not between north and south, she said, but between the
agro-industrial system and campesino agriculture. The economist and
documentary-maker said that campesinos have the capacity for action and
organization, as with the global movement Via Campesina, because usually they
have land.
Perez-Vitoria said that it is necessary to reopen the
discussion on the ownership and use of the land. At this point, investors have
realized that land is scarce, and have launched a process of land grabbing.
Campesinos seek just to use the land, but land grabbing should make us think
about whether ownership serves to defend the land from the investors, she said.
The other struggles that are needed in the countryside
are to rescue traditional knowledge, where there is already experience of
exchange; the fight for biodiversity in cultivation - which industrialized
agriculture has reduced by 75 per cent; and the defence of the conservation of
seeds by small farmers; the struggles against GMOs and the substitution of the
global market by local food, resulting in less transport and less coyotes.
Territory is also in the streets
Representatives of the Popular Movement of Dignity in
Argentina, piqueteros in origin and practice, recalled that this struggle had
moved their struggles to the territory of the streets and neighbourhoods
(barrios). This movement widened to include the building of "people power
in Buenos Aires territory", said the representative, adding that the
politics of audacity involves being constantly on the streets.
From the "Out with them all, the people alone can do
it," the militant piqueteros learned to move away from the idea of
taking power and from there transform their reality. "We have to imagine
now the society for which we are struggling," said the young Argentine,
who believes that the transformation must be for the whole of society; for
these people, who define themselves as anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist,
anti-patriarchal and anti-colonialist, anti-patriarchy and popular education
must be part of their actions. They explained broadly the actions such as
roadblocks and conducting popular education which are still in use today,
"The piqueteros, although not in the media, are still on the streets
taking piquetero actions," he said.
Mapuche territorial self-awareness
Also from the south of the continent, Luis Carcámo, from
the Mapuche community, presented the collective process by which the people
learn to keep being Mapuche. Through two examples, a book and a radio, he
showed how these tools can be used to support the territorial struggles,
political and cultural rights of his people, the Mapuche, "people of the
earth." The indigenous historian told how they developed a collective book
where they were no longer native informants but made it a tool for dialogue
within the community, to dismantle colonialism and "reconstruct histories
and memories," he said. Radio is also used to strengthen the resistance
against capitalism and colonialism.
Carcámo explained how, through self-awareness of the
territorial struggle, his people began to recover their land in the last two
decades. In 1997 there was an iconic land recovery in Arauco and Malleco, and
it was then that they began to apply the dictatorial antiterrorism law.
To date, he said, about 144 Mapuche leaders involved in
land struggles have been subjected to judicial proceedings; 40 were subjected
to the law and were sentenced to prison under the stigma of terrorism.
Repression he said, does not affect only the leaders, but also the communities.
In 2009, an elementary school was attacked, without warrant, by the police, who
fired gas against children and beat women, who suffered serious injuries.
Imprisoned Mapuche fighters have responded to repression
with hunger strikes in prison, using "their own bodies, territories from
which they cannot be evicted, as a form of resistance," said the
historian.
Coming to power fragmented the indigenous organization in
Ecuador
The representative of the National Indigenous
Confederation of Ecuador (CONAIE), Severino Sharupi, made a self-criticism
which, he said, he does not usually do publicly. Severino told how the CONAIE
developed a political project at the peak of their struggle in the eighties and
nineties. The axes were political – building a Plurinational state without
taking power, and criticizing the Colonial State; and economic – the
construction of a Community system without exploitation of man or nature; - and
cultural, with the intercultural bilingual education model.
However, education, health, and indigenous councils and
finance were integrated into the structure of the state and its institutions.
They also created the Pachakutik party to stand for election, and won councils,
prefectures and municipalities. Instead of abolishing the State, Severino said,
they strengthened it. At the same time, the strength of their organization has
prevented the adoption of a free trade agreement, has overthrown three
presidents, and has achieved a new constitution which respects the right of
nature, but this is only on paper.
Between 2000 and 2005, said the young indigenous, the
population was tired of party politics. "Power, able to bring in new
faces, constructed the figure of Rafael Correa," he said. The indigenous
movement supported him – not organically – because he recognized their demands,
but "he implemented an extractive model and demobilized us for five years",
said the young man. In the new elections, CONAIE is supporting a leftist
candidate, but Severino recognizes that they are playing in a land that is not
theirs. "This government did more damage than one from the right, because
they know how we move; the enemy is within, it has co-opted organizations which
are now divided," he explained. In addition, there are 200 prosecutions
for terrorism for defending the land.
But the people have already mobilized again, he said,
against 16 oil wells in the Amazon, against mining camps, and for the water and
the land. In these movements, "the new role of youth is to build
thinking." For Severino, "it is the time of the word, the time for
rebellion and the time to take a step forward", like the tortoise, which
walks slowly on four legs, but it is hard for it to fall. Finally, he shared
the teachings of his ancestors: "People disunited, people conquered;
people unarmed, people exterminated".
From the prison of Saint Cristóbal, the prisoners from
Solidarity with the Voice of el Amate, and Francisco Sántiz López, Zapatista
support base, sent their greetings to the seminar. The philosophers Fernanda
Navarro and Luis Villoro announced through a message, read by the presenter,
that they could not be present in body, "but in reality we are there with
you," recalling the roar of silence which managed to awaken the world and
relight the fire of hope even for the most skeptical, because, they said,
"history cannot be silenced".
http://desinformemonos.org/2013/01/el-tiempo-de-la-palabra-de-la-rebeldia-y-de-dar-un-paso-adelante/
16.Now is the time
for rebellion, message in the seminar of the Zapatistas
Power has not been built from
below with the idea of taking over the existing [structure] says the
Amazonian leader Sharupi
The lesson of the EZLN is that
history cannot be silenced, say Villoro and Navarro at the close of the
gathering
[Tzotziles have their say at
the close of the Yhird International Seminar of Reflection and Analysis, Planet
Earth,: anti-systemic movements, held in San Cristobal de Las Casas. Foto
Moysés Santiago Zuniga]
Hermann Bellinghausen
La Jornada
Thursday January 3, 2013, p. 5
San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, January
2. Celebrating "the roar of silence from our
Zapatista brothers and sisters, who have managed to wake up the world - even
the most incredulous -, reigniting the fire of hope", the philosophers
Luis Villoro and Fernanda Navarro greeted the third International Seminar of
Reflection and Analysis, Planet Earth :
anti-systemic movements, which concluded here tonight.
In their message, Villoro and
Navarro say: “They have given us a new lesson: that history cannot be silenced”.
This is not very different from what intercultural voices from indigenous
America came to say at this especial coloquio, coming from different
experiences, charged with energy (Newen the Mapuche call it) by the new
course of history.
In the final session the voices
of the intellectual of the Mapundungun language, Luis Carcamo-Huechante, and
the Amazonian leader from Ecuador, Severino Sharupi Tapuy, were heard loudly.
“These are not the times to slow down”, said the second, representing the
important National Indigenous Confederation of Ecuador (CONAIE). He offered an
assessment of the impact of the indigenous movement in the life of their
country in the past 20 years, not without self-criticism, as he admitted that,
despite their achievements, they have made mistakes in relation to the
intention of taking power (and they have come close to it, overthrowing three
presidents and achieving a new constitution).
According to Sharupi, “power
has not been built from below”, with the idea of “taking over the existing
power”. His words are urgent: “Now is not the time just to continue resisting.
It is the time to take a step forward. It is the time for the word and for
rebellion”. The resonance with the Zapatistas messages which have permeated
this international seminar is clear: “We are a people in construction”, he
said, and, a little paradoxically, concluded: “Like the turtle, which is slow,
but because it is going on all four feet, does not fall”.
The “saying doing / doing
saying” of the Ecuadorians is also closely related, without repeating it, to
the use of the word which has characterized the Zapatista movement in Chiapas
in the same two decades that CONAIE has walked its own paths, and it is not the first time their paths have
crossed.
Carcamo-Huechante, cosmopolitan
Mapuche in exile, spoke for the Community of Mapuche History, an organization
of cultural struggle in Chile which has found instruments of autonomy in the
book and radio. He described the experience of self-editing, with their own
vision of history, geography, interpretation of territory, and understanding of
the law.
The collective work History,
colonization and resistance in the Mapuche Country participates as a
milestone in the current and forceful awakening of the people of Wall Mapu in
Chile (and Argentina). They continue to be colonized by the Chilean government,
which has traditionally been racist and has persecuted and dispossessed them.
Since the Pinochet dictatorship, whenever they could they have applied the
infamous anti-terrorism law.
But also in Ecuador, with its
more progressive government (though mainly extractive, Sharupi said) they apply
a similar law against Indian leaders.
Added to these voices were
those of Felix Diaz, “qarashé” of the Qom community of Argentina, Andres Cuyul,
also Mapuche, and of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) of Mexico, who were
heard yesterday. All these contributions were translated or discussed in
Tzeltal and Tzotzil, in consideration of the local audience who came to listen
to the analysts, the leaders and scholars, such as Luis Villoro and Jean
Robert.
True to what has been the
active thinking of his life, Robert referred with generosity to the campesino
world, where resistance lives, and warned of the danger of its disappearance
due to the ecological disaster which is spanning the planet. A keyword for him
is “construction”.
This is also [true] for Villoro
and Navarro, who, answering the call of the Zapatistas said: “after that
silence they invite us, encourage us to walk the word, their word, to show what
they have achieved by resisting and building a world in which everything that
lives is loved and respected, because it has heart”.
17. Time of hope and action for
movements
"History cannot be silenced. The roar of the
silence of our Zapatista brothers and sisters has relit the fire of hope in
even the most incredulous", the philosophers Fernanda Navarro and Luis
Villoro said, in a message sent to the Third International Seminar of
Reflection and Analysis, "Planet Earth: anti-systemic movements".
"After the silence they invite us, encourage us
to walk the word, their word, to show what they have achieved resisting and
building a world in which everything that has life is loved and respected,
because it has heart", they said in an emotional greeting in the final
moments of the seminar.
Framed by three communiques issued by the Zapatista
Army of National Liberation (EZLN) on the night of December 30th –
one to civil society, one to the PRI and another to Louis H. Alvarez and the
Panista government – the space for dialogue was developed at the premises of
CIDECI-Unitierra, from December 30, 2012 to January 2, 2013. Certainly, the
common reference point for attendees and speakers was the massive silent
demonstration of the Zapatistas, held last December 21st, the date on which
they reappeared after more than a year of having no public actions.
The call to action for the movements came from
thinkers and social activists from different countries, but all identified with
the geography of below and to the left, who gathered to reflect on the
alternatives and resistances that are built around the world in the face of the
systemic crisis.
Representatives of experiences from places as
diverse as Iran and France, the Wallmapu (Mapuche Country) and the United
States, Argentina and Mexico, spoke of the need for immediate action to build
the other world for which we struggle, meaning that that Zapatista autonomy was
a benchmark for the four-day seminar and for every intervention.
Crisis
and opportunity
Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, former rector of UNAM and
an intellectual who has been close to the Zapatistas for nearly two decades,
said during his participation that it is fundamental to devise a vast network
of organizations in defence of land and territory to confront the colonial
policies of corporate capital. Given the crisis of the traditional left, he
said, an other geometry has arisen, that of below and above.
In that sense, said González Casanova, the
Zapatistas represent a new way of approaching problems and alternatives, beyond
the old dilemmas of the left, defending life, water, land and forest.
Gustavo Esteva, founder of the University of the
Earth in Oaxaca, said that capitalism has returned to the stage of accumulation
by dispossession and will use the state "to protect themselves from their
own excesses". The process of dismantling the welfare state will dispense
with all democratic practices and traditions, the new face of repression
against those who defend their territory and inter-community conflict is to
disguise it as inter-community conflict and send in hordes of attackers.
For Esteva, to regain hope is essential. However, he
specified, "it is not about sitting around waiting for something to pull
us forward", but about imagining something , and putting it into practice
immediately. "This is to dismantle the state apparatus by removing its
need to exist," said the scholar, and exemplified that "each and
every Zapatista school is an autonomous centre of knowledge production and
makes Chuayffet and 'The Master' (Elba Esther Gordillo) unnecessary". He
noted that we must defend the Zapatistas, end sexism and, above all, realize
that we are already in this new world.
François Houtart, Catholic priest and Marxist
sociologist, greeted the Zapatista resistance
noting that, concerning the possibility of building another system,
there are those who say and those who do; the Zapatistas belong to the latter,
and are an inspiration "to build another world", he said.
The Belgian intellectual emphasized that we are at
the end of an era because of the fundamental crisis of capitalism. "The
casino economy will explode one day," said the priest, who explained the
contradiction between financial and artificial economics and the real economy.
Houtart concluded that there is "widespread resistance against economic
inequality and the system that has been built in the world", and noted
that this crisis of the logic of development is affecting the whole world:
"we must not only find alternatives and regulations; we must completely
rethink the reality of Earth and human reality".
The ability to create another world, said Jérôme Baschet,
the historian, is made possible by the convergence in the ability to create and
expand free spaces and the deepening structural crisis of capitalism. The
creation of a world composed of several worlds, he said, breaks the unifying
logic of capital.
The
new world that already exists
The representative of the National Indigenous
Confederation of Ecuador (CONAIE), Severino Sharupi, assessed that the entry of
his organization into state institutions and electoral processes had weakened
them, even though they have achieved a new constitution and have ousted three
presidents. Now, however, they have reactivated nationwide resistance against
the extractive model promoted by President Rafael Correa. Severino said it is
no longer enough to resist, but "now is the time of the word, of rebellion
and to take a step forward."
Luis Carcamo, from the Mapuche community, presented
the collective process by which the people learn to keep being Mapuche. Through
two examples, a book and a radio, he showed how these tools can be used to
support the territorial struggles, and political and cultural rights of his
people, the Mapuche, "people of the earth". He reported that the
Mapuche political prisoners must use their bodies through hunger strikes to
protest the anti-terror law enforced against them.
Andres Cuyul, also Mapuche, presented the advances
in the healthcare of his people, who implement
a model critical of the official one, with political and technical
education. He charged that there is a “multicultural state
trap”, which incorporates Mapuche health workers "to legitimize their
biomedical action" and ignore the exercise of autonomy and the culture of
the Mapuche. In addition, he related how the State appropriates traditional
medical knowledge.
Indigenous peoples in Mexico participated through
the National Indigenous Congress (CNI). Evoking the figure of the deceased Juan
Chávez Alonso, pillar of this organization, and a Zapatista until the day of
his death, the organized indigenous reported, by letter or through a
spokesperson, the way they defend their territory from dispossession.
The commoner Salvador Campanur, from Cheran, spoke
about the CNI as a space for reflection and exchange among indigenous, allowing
them to think with the "heart and head" how to exercise autonomy, he
also ratified their adherence to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle.
"Political parties make hunger into a business," said the Purhépecha,
and "crime is king in corporations". Thus, he explained, they
organize for self-defence and to reconstruct their territory.
The Nahua people of Mexico thanked the EZLN for
convoking the indigenous peoples to form the CNI, and denounced the
continuation of the policy of exploitation and theft by the governments of
different colours. The people of Suljaa' confirmed, through Radio Ñomdaa, their
struggle for the right to speak. A representative of Las Abejas of Acteal spoke
from the Tzotzil worldview (cosmovision) of capitalism, ‘living well’, and the
need for resistance.
For their part, the Purhépechas of Nurío, the land
of Don Juan Chavez, affirmed their commitment to defend their territory, while
the Assembly of the Peoples of the Isthmus in Defence of Territory explained
the imposition sought by the wind energy company Marena Renewables without
consulting the indigenous peoples, which is promoting inter-community conflict.
Greetings were also received from the Yaqui people,
who defend their river; from the Wirrárika people, who are defending themselves
against mining companies, and a Chicano who participated told how they cling
firmly to their strong indigenous roots, "Maybe we do not have a space in
the nation, but what is most important is what is from below and to the
left".
Life
and seeds
Silvia Ribeiro, researcher from ETC, and expert in
transgenics, denounced in her participation the cultivation of genetically
modified corn (maize), which is a concrete and symbolic attack on Mexico, the
"genetic heart of corn" in the world.
"Corn is not a thing, it is a web of
relationships in which we are all involved. Corn is an essential part of the
subsistence of life for thousands of communities, it is the heart of their
time, of their calendar". Therefore, she said, its defence is the defence
of the people of the corn.
Ribeiro reiterated that the offensive of
transnational capital, allied to the state, weakens, with the use of GMOs, the
capacity for autonomous subsistence and food sovereignty of indigenous
communities, and directly affects their autonomy and their ability to oppose
the demands and dispossessions imposed by the government.
Struggles
from the U.S., Argentina and Puerto Rico
Emory Douglas, former member of the Black Panther
Party, explained how the organization built solutions from below to the
problems caused by the neglect and segregation they suffer, such as health clinics,
feeding programmes, and schools in the communities of Oakland with a curriculum
designed to promote critical thinking and connected to the reality experienced
by the students. The former Black Panther also recalled the important role of
women, who were often the majority in community projects and assemblies.
The representative of the Movement for Justice in El
Barrio, New York, presented a video about the struggle and the organization
undertaken by its 73 neighbourhood committees to solve their daily problems,
inspired by the organization of the Zapatistas. The organization also presented
the way they conduct campaigns to raise awareness about the problems in the
Zapatista communities.
The piqueteros of Argentina, organized in the
Popular Movement "Dignity", recounted how their struggle has
transformed; while they still operate road blocks, they are expanding into
popular education and seeking solutions to everyday problems in the neighbourhoods.
"In the twenty first century, there is still a
classic colony and that is Puerto Rico," said the Puerto Rican Ivonne
Maria Soto. Supported by images from a film, Soto recounted the struggle for
independence of her people and said, "Today we still have political
prisoners".
The
13th Baktun
Mercedes Oliveira and Xochitl Leyva commented on the
meaning of the 13th Baktun, the change in the Maya cycle. Oliveira said that
this is a time of the "rebirth of life", with the renewal and
continuation of the struggle; Leyva spoke of the political dispute about the
interpretation of the 13th Baktun and its appropriation by the industry of
"cultural tourism" and by the "neoliberal multiculturalism"
of the globalized world.
Leyva recalled the multiple calendars in which the
mobilization of December 21 is inserted, in addition to the Mayan tradition:
the end of the presidential term and the return of the PRI to federal power,
the 15th anniversary of the Acteal massacre, the foundation of the EZLN and the
1994 uprising, the emergence of the National Liberation Forces, and the memory
of the Indian uprisings of the colonial
period.
The Iranian Majid Rahnema said that the true wealth
lies in the potential for life which exists in every one us, which the
Zapatistas expressed very well in their way of struggle and reflection,
"walking while asking questions" (preguntar caminando).
January 7, 2013
This is great stuff. Zapatismo raises the bar on what's possible in the north too, provides an inspiring example. I only had time to skim the content here, and would like to see a shortened verssion, but thanks Helen et al for y9ur great work in making it available. I heard through a local ecovillage group . . . so your efforts are getting 'round.
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