ZAPAGRINGO

Farewell...

2011-08-31T22:40:00.037-04:00

"The heart is below and to the left"

Five years of bringing you zapatista-inspired rebellion on Turtle Island and throughout the galaxy comes to a close. The rebellion continues.

In this final post we'll look back on some of the blog's highlights over the years, bring you up to speed on where things are at with the zapatistas, and point towards my next directions on this journey.

Over 17 years since their uprising and first appearance on the public stage, and over 27 years since their founding, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) continues to creatively struggle for a new world -> most recently through lending their support, in word and action, to the first mass movement to end the war on drugs, Mexico's Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity.

The over 1,000 zapatista base communities in Chiapas continue building their autonomous institutions, slowly but steadily improving their daily lives in spite of continued repression from all levels (municipal, state and federal) of the Mexican government and all parties in power. In the past year alone they have issued 11 denunciations each relating to some aspect of the counterinsurgency campaign against them. An observation and solidarity brigade with the zapatista communities is currently underway. The brigade, organized by the Network Against Repression and for Solidarity along with other members of the Other Campaign, is documenting and will disseminate information both on the attacks against the communities as well as their progress in building autonomy.

After two years of silence, zapatista Subcomandate Marcos began a public correspondence this year with Mexican sociologist Don Luis Villoro. This dialogue has drawn in many others, including Javier Sicilia, the inspirational poet of the movement against the drug war. Marcos mentions Sicilia and the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity in his latest letter to Villoro, to which he receives a reply from Sicilia himself. You can read a translation of their correspondence in English here. To read Marcos' entire letter in Spanish, released just a few days ago, which details the latest goings on in Chiapas and Mexico (meanwhile managing to mention Obama and Hillary Clinton), click here.

What will come next for the zapatistas... and the rest us? Well that remains to be decided.

Following an internal consultation with the over 200,000 members of the zapatista communities in June of 2005, the EZLN released their Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, which was a record of their experiences up to that point and an invitation to publicly join them in building a national and global movement against capitalism “from below and to the left.”

A little over a year after the release of the Sixth Declaration, I began this blog to accompany that initiative from here in New York City... and we've covered much ground together. The first stories came from my extended stay in Oaxaca working for Narco News at the beginning of 2006. Those were the early days of the Other Campaign and many months before the city and state would explode in open rebellion against a tyrannical government. Those first stories of Mexico were soon accompanied by breaking news and calls to action, political analyses, profiles of people and movements, and even the uncovering of buried histories. First from the Levant, then the US and beyond -> a galaxy in rebellion, seeking greater freedom, justice and democracy.

One of the most important contributions made here has been our coverage of Movement for Justice in El Barrio, an immigrant-led community-based organization here in NYC's East Harlem that has led many valiant struggles to not only defend their own territory but also to defend fellow members of the Other Campaign. Zapagringo has provided more in-depth coverage of their remarkable work than any other source (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14) including their efforts on behalf of the zapatistas, Abahlali baseMjondolo (the South African Shackdweller's Movement), the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala, their remarkable contributions (1,2) to the campaign Freedom and Justice for Atenco, and -most recently- their bold, global leadership in the successful struggle to free the political prisoners from San Sebastián Bachajón (1,2,3). That's at least 22 stories on Movement for Justice in El Barrio. The publication of this farewell message was delayed as I was informed that this was the first place people were going for information on San Sebastián Bachajón... and that I needed to post on the victory. It's a sweet note to close on, and the struggle continues. I hope that others will continue to carry the torch even as I change gears (now I'm getting ahead of myself). Reach out to Movimiento at movementforjusticeinelbarrio [at] yahoo.com to support and stay abreast of their work through their mailing list.

Our coverage of Movement for Justice in El Barrio has perhaps only been rivaled by our early coverage of Oaxaca. A certain sector of New York City exploded in rage when long-time local activist Brad Will was murdered in the suppression of five-months of popular control in Oaxaca City from June to November of 2006. Having met and interviewed many of the highly diverse organizations and activists in Oaxaca at the beginning of 2006 (1,2,3) and already mobilizing in NYC against repression of the Other Campaign, it only made sense to step up to support the mobilizations that began here with Brad's murder that October (1,2,3)... and to support the ongoing action of his family and friends. El Enemigo Común (inspired by and building on the work of Simón Sedillo) continues to be the first place to look for up-to-date coverage of the ongoing struggle for freedom in Oaxaca.

The breadth of struggle that we've covered here over the past five years is major, and starts to give some idea of the distance covered by the word of the zapatistas (the best account of their public history, Gloria Muñoz Ramirez's "The Fire and The Word", has just been published in Farsi). Some of the most consistent international links highlighted here are those with Palestine (1,2,3,4 + Slingshot Hip Hop 1,2,3,4,5) and South Africa (1,2,3,4,5). With such a wide ranging geography, Zapagringo has drawn a readership from across the globe, with a consistent readership over the last two years (I can't track further back) hailing from throughout Europe (especially Germany, Russia, Netherlands, UK and France) and Canada, as well as South Korea, Iran and China... and countless other countries in fewer numbers.

With such a global readership, it makes sense that one of our top three most-read posts is our publication of Kolya Abramsky's article, "The Bamako Appeal and The Zapatista 6th Declaration: Between Creating New Worlds and Reorganizing the Existing One"... or as I provocatively titled the post, World Social Forum vs The Intergalactic. It's a compelling look at global processes of struggle through a zapatista lens. And if you enjoyed that piece I recommend you also check out, "Gathering Our Dignified Rage: Building New Autonomous Global Relations of Production, Livelihood and Exchange," which he wrote in the lead up to the World Festival of Dignified Rage, which was co-hosted by the zapatistas and gathered people from across the globe for 11 days in three locations in Mexico around New Years '08-'09.

The heaviest readership without a doubt has come from within the US. Over the years I've prioritized illuminating the links between the zapatista struggle and our work here in the States. The connections made range from the early, foundational piece "Enter the Intergalactic" to a look at the relationship between zapatismo and the movement to abolish the prison industrial complex; from publishing the first ever biography of the New Afrikan revolutionary Kuwasi Balagoon to current debates within the community organizing left. It comes as no surprise then that another of our top three most-read posts is the online publication of Paula X Rojas' "Are the Cops in Our Heads and Hearts?," which was originally published in the INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence collection, "The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex."

What has been surprising, though, is that this blog's top post is also it's most personal (Again, this is measuring from the past two years or so -> I can't believe what's been accomplished with such a limited understanding of the medium... I clearly don't even know how to "tag" things). The most-read story over the past couple years on Zapagringo is the piece we collectively wrote from the Challenging Male Supremacy Project. And this is the direction in which my work is deepening.

My main motivation for closing the blog, and stepping away from other work I've been holding for a long time now, is to more deeply enter and focus on building transformative justice responses to violence against women, queer and trans people, and children. I've actually landed here through my engagement with the zapatistas.

If you're interested, keep an eye out for continued events I'll be producing through my paid gig with the Foundry Theatre; such as a dialogue series this winter (jan-mar 2012), which will bring together social justice organizers from across the city, and world, to "show-and-tell" about their work on various themes. Another Politics is Possible (1,2,3,4,5,6) will be coming out with some collectively written work as part of a forthcoming book project, Regeneración Childcare NYC (1,2,3) will likely be writing something collectively as well, and Secret Survivors (also here) will be coming out with a toolkit based on our live performance.

The main thrust of my work, however, will be in building transformative justice, through the Challenging Male Supremacy Project in NYC, and nationally in coordination with and through generationFIVE. This focus will include a deepening engagement with generative somatics and will bring to bear what I’ve learned and continue to learn from the zapatistas and other struggles throughout the world. It's from this place that I'll add my grain of sand to this struggle between humanity and "the empire of money," the fourth world war.

If you're looking for information on the zapatistas, on related struggles around the world, or even on the work I'm directly involved in, look no further than the links to the right of this post.

A special thank you to all those friends and compañer@s who over the years have intentionally given your words and work to this project: Al, Alex, Andre, Andy, Another Politics is Possible, Anwar, Ashanti, Boston Interpreters Collective, Carwil, Casa Atabex Aché, Challenging Male Supremacy Project, Chris, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Cory, Dan, Fernando, Francesca, Grace, Greg, Karl, Kaya, Kazembe (soon to be a papa!), Kolya, Kristen, Left Turn Magazine, Mandy, Matrix Magazine, Matt, Max, Midnight Notes, Movement for Justice in El Barrio, Paula, Prita, Regeneración Childcare NYC, Rethinking Solidarity, Simón, Steve, Tessa, Toussaint, Trip and Upping the Anti.

Thank you for joining me on this journey readers and, most of all, people in struggle.

That’s farewell… at least for here, and now :-)

All Bachajón Prisoners Are Free!

2011-07-26T13:54:00.010-04:00

The final video by Movement for Justice in El Barrio about the political prisoners of San Sebastián Bachajón

What began as a struggle to free 10 political prisoners, then dropped to six, then five, then four... has finally concluded with all prisoners free. You can find earlier coverage here (1,2). This comes fresh on the heels of a major victory in court for Abahlali baseMjondolo, the South African Shackdwellers Movement, whose struggle we have supported (1,2,3,4) and who has also connected directly with Movement for Justice in El Barrio. Below is a recent article from La Jornada and further down is a message from Movement for Justice in El Barrio celebrating the freedom of all the prisoners of San Sebastián Bachajón!

They Free the Last 4 of the "Bachajón 5"
The campesinos remained prisoners more than five months in the prison of Playas de Catazajá, accused of the murder of an Agua Azul ejido member.

Hermann Bellinghausen,
July 24, 2011
San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas.
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee

The last four of the “Bachajón Five” were liberated this Saturday. The campesinos, adherents of the Other Campaign from San Sebastián Bachajón ejido (Chilón Municipality), who remained prisoners more than five months in the Playas de Catazajá prison, accused of the murder of an ejido member from Agua Azul (Tumbalá), and of alleged crimes related tp protests at the Agua Azul crossing in the first week in February. Although the serious charges turned out to be false, the indigenous men remained incarcerated as “hostages” of the government, according to what the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) has been maintaining.

Juan Aguilar Guzmán, Jerónimo Guzmán Méndez, Domingo García Gómez and Domingo Pérez Álvaro, who several times denounced mistreatment by authorities of the Social Re-adaptation Center for the Sentenced Number 17, are now in their community. On July 7, Mariano Demeza Silvano was released, a prisoner in the Villa Crisol (Berriozábal) re-adaptation centre for minors.

It’s appropriate to remember here that this persecution against the indigenous men happened within the context of a conflict in San Sebastián Bachajón over the ejido owners’ ticket booth at the access to the Agua Azul Cascades, an important tourist attraction in the state’s northern jungle. The ticket booth, installed by the ejido members, was attacked by members of the PRI and PVEM (Colosio Foundation), who “acted destroying and robbing whatever was in their way,” and they violently appropriated the spot for themselves at the beginning of February, with the backup of the Federal Army (Ejército) and the police who have remained stationed there ever since.

In those acts Marcos García Moreno, from the aggressor group, lost his life, and the Other Campaign members were blamed, “when it really was the ‘ideology’ of the Secretary General of the Government,” they said, upon denouncing the attack as a “product of the private meetings” between officials and officialist [pro-government] ejido owner.

The incarceration of the indigenous men originated dozens of protest actions at consulates and embassies of Mexico in Europe, the United States, South Africa, Australia and Argentina for several months, besides mobilizations in Chiapas and other parts of the country.

On the Chiapas Coast, Other Campaign protests were repressed and gave way to new incarcerations, although for just a few days.

Movement for Justice in the Barrio, of the Other Campaign in New York, which animated and diffused these solidarity protests and played a determining role in their organization, confirmed last night the liberation of the Tzeltal campesinos, and today Frayba, in charge of their legal defence, confirmed it.

____________

The Bachajón 4 are Free!
[from Movement for Justice in El Barrio]

We rejoice in El Barrio, New York for the liberation of the 4 political prisoners of San Sebastián Bachajón.

Movement for Justice in El Barrio, The Other Campaign New York, would like to share with everyone the great news on the liberation of fighters for justice who endured unjust convictions imposed by the bad government of the repressive Governor of the PRD Juan Sabines and repressive PAN President Felipe Calderon for pure revenge, only because they resisted and defended their land and their autonomy as indigenous peoples.

They had to endure five months of an unjust imprisonment.

Their resistance and courage has been for Movement for Justice in El Barrio a inspiration and a powerful reason to keep fighting.

In El Barrio, New York, we celebrate because we know that this was not a triumph of the rule of law that does not exist in Mexico, rather one for the organizing and mobilizing of our brothers and sisters, ejidatarios of San Sebastian Bachajon and our comrades of good heart in Mexico and all over the world.

We embrace you too and celebrate you all.

With the spirit of "an injury to one is an injury to all," together we fought and accomplished the liberation of our brothers from San Sebastián Bachajón.

¡Viva las y los ejidatarios de San Sebastián Bachajón!

¡Viva el EZLN!

¡Viva La Otra Campaña!

Kids Transform the World at the 2011 AMC

2011-06-23T01:39:00.007-04:00

Interdisciplinary artist Joe Namy leads an arabic drumming workshop as part of the 2010 Allied Media Conference Kids Track

In 2008 Regeneración Childcare NYC created "Akila and the Prison Monster" - an interactive theatre and workshop series - and joined with the Bay Area Childcare Collective and other activists to bring it to life as a kids program for Critical Resistance 10.

In 2011 we're taking it to a whole 'nother level at the Allied Media Conference this weekend in Detroit where kids will work together to... save the future. It's a big task but they will have support from the Intergalactic Conspiracy of Childcare Collectives (Regeneración Childcare NYC, Bay Area Childcare Collective, ChiChiCo from Chicago, Philly and DC Childcare Collectives, Kelli's Childcare Collective from Atlanta, and La Semilla from Austin) as well as video messages from kids, babies and adults from the year 2511. Seriously, it's that hot. Check out the full 2011 Allied Media Conference Kids Track program -> Kids Transform the World.

Phew! It's been one of those months, with so much to comment on, from the ongoing Arab Spring being joined by a European one, to the rising movement in Mexico for peace and against the drug war. But it's been one of those months for me too... take this week for example: getting flown out to Minneapolis on Monday to perform Secret Surivors for people working to end child sexual abuse throughout the country, coming back to NYC to co-facilitate our second to last session of the 2011 Challenging Male Supremacy Study-into-Action and the opening of FUREE in Pins & Needles from my paid gig with the Foundry Theatre... and leaving now for Detroit. It's not sustainable, I know, I really am working on that.

And I can't wait to share the Challenging Male Supremacy Study-into-Action curriculum (we're finally gonna pull it together!), much less the videos and program for this Kids Track. Props to Ileana, Bhavana and Lauren who have been holding it down for Regeneración all year with the 2011 AMC organizing!!!

The Revolution Starts at Home

2011-05-13T17:07:00.011-04:00

The greatly expanded version of a piece originally published in Left Turn describing the first phase of the Challenging Male Supremacy Project is hot off the presses and featured in this fantastic collection -> catch our reading tomorrow night in NYC! Here is an announcement for the book and tour from INCITE!...

After seven years of hard work, the anthology, The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities, edited by Ching-In Chen, Jai Dulani and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, is finally printed and out! And there are tour dates! Here’s more about the collection:

Was/is your abusive partner a high-profile activist? Does your abusive girlfriend’s best friend staff the domestic violence hotline? Have you successfully kicked an abuser out of your group? Did your anti-police brutality group fear retaliation if you went to the cops about another organizer’s assault? Have you found solutions where accountability didn’t mean isolation for either of you? Was the ‘healing circle’ a bunch of bullshit? Is the local trans community so small that you don’t want you or your partner to lose it?

We wanted to hear about what worked and what didn’t, what survivors and their supporters learned, what they wish folks had done, what they never want to have happen again. We wanted to hear about folks’ experiences confronting abusers, both with cops and courts and with methods outside the criminal justice system.

— The Revolution Starts at Home collective

Long demanded and urgently needed, The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities finally breaks the dangerous silence surrounding the secret of intimate violence within social justice circles. This watershed collection of stories and strategies tackles the multiple forms of violence encountered right where we live, love, and work for social change — and delves into the nitty-gritty on how we might create safety from abuse without relying on the state. Drawing on over a decade of community accountability work, along with its many hard lessons and unanswered questions, The Revolution Starts at Home offers potentially life-saving alternatives for creating survivor safety while building a movement where no one is left behind.

The Revolution Starts at Home authors and editors are taking these conversations on the road. Keep up with upcoming book events and author interviews at their blog.

More dates will be happening throughout the year – if you’re interested in organizing an event in your community, please email revathome@gmail.com. If you can’t make a book event, please buy the book direct from South End Press, through your local independent bookstore or through Powell’s Books.

~ Northeastern North American Leg of the Revolution Starts At Home Book Tour ~
Accessibility details listed under each event! Please come fragrance free — more deets below!

NEW YORK, NY:
Saturday, May 14, 2011
7:30pm – 9:30pm
Bluestockings Bookstore, Café & Activist Center
172 Allen St. New York, NY 10002
RSVP to Facebook event here
Come to the launch party for this long-awaited, beloved book!
With co-editors Jai Dulani and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and contributors Gaurav Jashnani and RJ Maccani (Challenging Male Supremacy Project), Jessica Yee (Native Youth Sexual Health Network) and Timothy Colm (Philly’s Pissed, Philly Survivor Support Collective.)
Access: Wheelchair accessible space, tiny tiny bathroom. We’re reserving seats for folks who need to sit due to disability and chronic illness/pain.

AMHERST, MA:
Sunday, May 15, 2011
5-7 PM
Food For Thought Books
106 N. Pleasant St, Amherst, MA
413-253-5432
Co-editors Ching-In Chen and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha will be in attendance, read, sign books and answer questions.
Access: Fully wheelchair accessible, including bathrooms. We’re reserving seats for folks who need to sit due to disability and chronic illness/pain.

PHILADELPHIA, PA:
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
7 PM
A Space
4722 Baltimore Avenue
Philadelphia, PA
Facebook event here
Contributor Timothy Colm, O.G. co-editor Sham-e-Ali Nayeem and co-editor Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha will read, do Q and A and sign books.
Co sponsored by Philly Stands Up!
Access: Wheelchair accessible to get in. Non-accessible bathroom. We’re reserving seats for folks who need to sit due to disability and chronic illness/pain.

TORONTO, CANADA:
Thursday, May 26
6:30 PM, doors open 9 PM
Toronto Women’s Bookstore
73 Harbord St
Toronto ON
416.922.8744
Facebook event here
Come to the launch party for this long-awaited, beloved book!
Featuring readings, snacks, discussion and book signings
DJ’d by Syrus Ware
Contributors Jessica Yee (Native Youth Sexual Health Network) and Juliet November, and co-editor Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha will attend and read.
Access: Wheelchair accessible to get in. Non accessible bathroom. Reserved seating for folks who need it. ASL interpretation and Livestream info forthcoming – watch this space!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: We want to acknowledge that all these events take place on stolen Indigenous land and that it is at Indigenous people’s expense that we occupy this land. Community accountability is work that Indigenous communities have been doing outside of and in resistance to systems of state power since before the arrival of colonial settlers, and continue to do. We thank the Three Fires Confederacy, Mohawk, Anishnabe, Lenape, Nipmuc, Ohlone and Miwok Nations for allowing us to be on their land.

ACCESS IS LOVE & JUSTICE: See above for specific accessible notes about each venue. We were 90% successful at getting wheelchair accessible spaces and are reserving seating for folks who need it due to pain, disability or illness. It really, really sucks that we didn’t have funding for ASL interpretation for this tour, but we will post videos of some of the launches with text transcription on our tumblr. If you have access concerns or questions, please email revathome@gmail.com.

Fragrance free is hella love! So that beloved community members including some editors and contributors can be present without throwing up or having to leave, please come to this event fragrance free! This means no cologne, perfume, essential oil and also switching to unscented products. We know folks have a learning curve around this, but if you can ditch the scented (yup, even with ‘natural’ scents) detergent and fabric softener, it’ll go a long way. Awesome scent-free list here

Zibechi on Bachajón & Zapatista Prisoners

2011-05-05T22:39:00.007-04:00

Third video message from San Sebastián Bachajón

The struggle to free the five remaining political prisoners of the Other Campaign adherent community San Sebastián Bachajón continues, along with the struggle to free the recently dispossessed and imprisoned Zapatista support base Patricio Domínguez Vázquez. One of the most recent steps in this struggle was the "5 MORE Global Days of Action for the Bachajón 5", which took place from April 24-28, and the "Global Day of Action for the Zapatista Political Prisoner" on April 29, both convened by Movement for Justice in El Barrio. Leading up to the days of action, groups from India, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa, Slovenia, France, Austria, Canada, Barcelona, Edinburgh, Dorset and Glasgow, the United States and from throughout Mexico confirmed their participation. Hermann Bellinghausen reported yesterday in La Jornada that there were demonstrations in 33 cities in France alone (really?!), and in 20 other countries.

This struggle is taking place concurrently with rapidly rising civil resistance to that US-backed war against the Mexican people often referred to as the "War on Drugs." Convoked by poet Javier Sicilia, whose son and six others were recently murdered and falsely tied to organized crime, a march from Cuernavaca to Mexico City began today and will be joined by actions throughout Mexico and the world in the days ahead. The Zapatistas, and many other members of the Other Campaign, are actively engaging the initiative. In this letter to Javier Sicilia, Subcomandante Marcos describes the action the Zapatistas will be taking in Chiapas. Here in NYC, Movement for Justice in El Barrio will be bringing the heat to the Mexican Consulate tomorrow followed by a march from the Consulate to the United Nations organized by other folks on March 8th.

It's all very exciting and necessary, yes, but to bring us back to the theme of this post -> here are some sage words from compañero Raúl Zibechi...

Montevideo, May 2, 2011

Dear compas from Movement for Justice in El Barrio and The Other Campaign New York:

The only crime the people of the San Sebastián Bachajón ejido have committed is that of wanting to live in their lands—the lands of their grandparents, of their most distant ancestors—which now risk being appropriated by the multinationals of money and death. The five from Bachajón, imprisoned since February 3, like Patricio Domínguez Vázquez, who was detained in mid-April in the ejido Monte Redondo of Frontera Comalapa, are victims of the political class that works in the service of multinational corporations.

Today’s war is for the land: To appropriate the life that it provides for and reproduces, and for this reason, the indigenous peoples and campesinos are the primary obstacles that must be done away with. Ever since capital decided that everything is a commodity for doing business and accumulating more capital, no space on earth remains – not even the slightest corner – that can free itself from this ambition. In order to seize the land, they unleashed what the Zapatistas have termed the “Fourth World War.” In Latin America this war lies in the displacement of millions of people from roughly one hundred million hectares in dispute. The huge open-pit mining projects; the monocropping of sugarcane, maize, and soy to produce gasoline; and the planting of trees to create cellulose are all killing life and people from South to North.

In some cases, such as Patricio’s, where not only was he imprisoned, but his house was burned down and destroyed because, in reality, they wanted him to abandon his land. That is the war that has existed for 60 years in Colombia, which allowed more than four million hectares to pass from the hands of the farmers to those of the paramilitaries, since they are offered as a form of security by the multinationals. A war to expel farmers – over three million in the last twenty years – in order to free up territories so that they may be converted into spaces for the speculation of capital. In Colombia, the territories of the war coincide precisely with the territories that the big mines and infrastructure megaprojects desire.

The same thing is taking place throughout the entire continent. The Brazilian government is turning the Amazonian rivers into cheap energy sources for the big businesses from Brazil and the North. It is constructing enormous dams that require ten, fifteen, and even twenty thousand poorly paid and miserably housed workers: They are the new slaves for governments obedient to capital. When they rise up, as they did in Jirau (in the state of Roraima) last March, they become labeled as “bandits.”

What is most painful, and most revealing, is how the political class that once claimed to be of the Left unites with the perennial political class of the Right in the displacement and imprisonment of indigenous peoples and farmers, and in doing so, demonstrates that they are all the same in their attack against those from below to make businesses for those from above. And they use “ecological” arguments because they learned the politically correct excuses to downplay displacement.

From this corner of the continent, I join you all in New York who are carrying out the campaign to free the Bachajón 5 and Patricio. Movement for Justice in El Barrio, who I was able to meet in January 2009 at the Festival of Dignified Rage in San Cristobal de las Casas, shows that community solidarity and camaraderie know no borders, and that we cannot hope for anything from those from above or their institutions. We only depend on ourselves.

Salud,
Raúl Zibechi

Movement for a New Society

2011-04-22T01:19:00.004-04:00

A chart representing ideas from the very useful and insightful conclusion to Andrew Cornell's new book, Oppose and Propose!, on the Movement for a New Society

Movement for a New Society (MNS) was a national network of feminist radical pacifist collectives that existed in the US from 1971 to 1988. They pioneered forms of consensus decision making, communal living, direct action, and self-education that shaped and are central to many current struggles. Although they decided to "lay the organization down" in '88, many of MNS' former members continue to be active. The history, recent interviews, past documents and (especially) conclusions that Cornell draws from his "militant coresearch" with MNS in the newly released Oppose and Propose! provide us with much needed lessons for how we think about and do leadership, movement building, counterculture, and prefigurative politics today.

If you haven't already ordered or otherwise acquired a copy of the book, and aren't yet convinced you should, check out this article Cornell wrote on MNS while doing his research. I breezed through this book and look forward to discussing it with my closest compas. Highly recommended!

NYC... Just Like I Pictured It

2011-04-11T00:25:00.003-04:00

a festival of performances re-imagining the city we live in

Struggle is par for the course when our dreams go into action. But unless we have the space to imagine, and a vision to realize our humanity, all the protests and demonstrations in the world won't bring about our liberation. -Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams

With Kelley's words in mind, a performance festival created through collaborations between theatre artists and communities working toward social justice begins today in New York City. This has been my paid gig since August, lead producing the five projects leading up to the full-scale musical that closes the festival in June/July. I'm picking up the torch from and joining the work of a friend and compañera, Ujju Aggarwal, whose work has defined the last several years of this programming for the award-winning Foundry Theatre. Mieke Duffly joined the team as well and has been the driving force behind the first show, Active Ingredients, which goes up this week. With Luis Lopez on spanish/english interpretation, Chris Abueg on design and Vee Bravo holding down the video documentation, it's basically a family affair. Check out the exciting line-up below and find out how to reserve your tickets here.

In other zapagringo news, on Wednesday the residents of over 40 Mexican cities took to the streets demanding an end to the murderous drug war. If you haven't yet read Subcomandante Marcos' recent letter On War it's definitely worth a look now. On a different note, I also want to thank all of you who came out to El Museo del Barrio on March 12 for our big performance of Secret Survivors!

NYC... Just Like I Pictured It
April 11 - July 9
A festival of performances re-imagining the city we live in.

April 11
Preview Event: The Foundry Theatre: At the Intersection of Art + Social Justice

April 14 & 16
Third Root Community Health Center
+ Eisa Davis & Morley
= Active Ingredients

April 30 & May 1
Adhikaar
+ Aya Ogawa & Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew
= Yatra Samudra Samma: Journey to the Ocean

May 8
New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE)
+ Lisa Rothe & Carlos Albán
= Mira al Horizonte/ Look to the Horizon

May 14 & 15
Green Oasis Community Garden
+ Maureen Towey & Jason Grote
= Emergence

May 19 & 22
United Playaz
+ UNIVERSES
= A Point in Time

June 22 - July 9
Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE)
+ The Foundry Theatre
= FUREE ON PINS & NEEDLES

Days of Action for San Sebastián Bachajón

2011-03-07T23:23:00.018-05:00

UPDATE Apr 10: The Other Campaign adherent community of San Sebastián Bachajón took back control of their toll booth on Friday but on Saturday were again forcibly displaced by over 800 members of the police and military. In addition to the remaining five political prisoners being held in miserable conditions, the community is now also concerned with the disappearance of three members during Saturday's raid. It is in light of this that Movement for Justice in El Barrio has called for 5 MORE Global Days of Action in Solidarity with San Sebastián Bachajón following the first five they successfully convened from April 1-5.

UPDATE Mar 10: Movement for Justice in El Barrio has just confirmed that five of the ten prisoners have been released. The other five are still being held so let's keep the pressure on to free them ALL!

Convoked by Movement for Justice in El Barrio, events and actions are being held around the world today and tomorrow to demand the freedom of the political prisoners of San Sebastián Bachajón and in honor of the women of the Other Campaign. Groups from South Africa, Puerto Rico, the Phillipines, Austria, Morocco, France, Scotland, Germany, Colombia, London, Barcelona, Dorset, Argentina, New York City and various states in Mexico -including the community of San Sebastián Bachajón- have confirmed their participation.

Four of the ten prisoners have just been freed -> Let's keep it going! You can learn more and spread the word about this struggle through the video message above.

Zapatista Spring

2011-02-27T18:36:00.005-05:00

The Chiapas government has launched another wave of repression against the Other Campaign in that state. Movement for Justice in El Barrio has convoked a Worldwide Day of Action. It is within this context that Subcomandante Marcos has broken two years of silence with "About the Wars, Part 2" - the first fragment released of a letter to sociologist Luis Villoro.

This blog has often been a place to explore the ways and meanings of solidarity. From pieces such as Rethinking Solidarity to my own ruminations to Simón Sedillo's thoughts coming out of his years in Oaxaca. Whereas much of my concern has been with the work we do closer to home, this chapter below (from the forthcoming book) explores the dynamics of solidarity as an Irishman spending extensive time in Latin American peasant communities... here in the Zapatistas' autonomous municipalities:

Zapatista Spring: Anatomy of a Rebel Water Project
by Ramor Ryan
from the Institute for Anarchist Studies' Perspectives

“Solidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is in solidarity, it is a radical posture.”— Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Roberto Arenas is a small tseltal(1) community of twenty-three subsistence farmer families located in the Chiapas Lacandon Rainforest, a six hour drive from the nearest major commercial center, the market town of Ocosingo. The occupants, adherents of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN, its Spanish acronym), formed a nuevo poblado, a new community, here about three years ago. The land makes up part of the territory that was taken over or 're-cuperated’ by the Zapatistas in the midst of the January 1st 1994 uprising, as the land owners fled and the rebels took control of the zone. Under the mantle that the land is owned by those who work it, the Zapatistas began slowly dividing out the vast swathes to Zapatista militia and support base families – usually landless indigenous peasants or campesinos who previously labored on large fincas under difficult conditions. About 300,000 hectares of land were recuperated by the insurgent Zapatistas after the tumultuous state-wide uprising. The newly formed community of Roberto Arenas, fell under the jurisdiction of the Francisco Gomez Autonomous region, a self-governing Zapatista municipality where there is no state authority and, as the sign entering the municipality announces, “Here the people govern and the government obeys!”

Like hundreds of other little villages dotted throughout the region, theirs is a community characterized by pastoral simplicity. The roughly hewn, earthen floor dwellings are scattered around the undulating hills, and converge on a grassy community plaza with a muddy basketball court, flanked by a couple of rustic wooden structures that serve as church, community hall, and school. Although the community would probably be considered to exist in extreme poverty by any standard indices, they are poor mostly in the sense that they lack buying power—surviving on less than $2 a day. Nevertheless, all vital needs of daily life are satisfied with farming and the natural resources around them, and only a small part of their needs are satisfied in the market. Roberto Arenas is a frugal rather than impoverished community, it is self-sufficient in a traditional way, and would only approach extreme poverty if they lost the forests, rivers, and commons that are part of their home.

Like most other indigenous settlements in the region, Roberto Arenas has no electricity or potable water. Water for washing is hauled from the jungle river and drinking water is carried from a small water-hole 1 kilometre away. There are few latrines, and, as is customary, adults and children alike mostly use the natural surroundings. Almost all water sources are contaminated by human and animal feces. Waterborne illnesses affect the population (predominantly children) including those related to amoebas and giardia, and there is a threat of cholera and typhoid. Lack of potable water sources increase the risk of scabies infection, lice, salmonella, ascariasis and enterovirus diarrheas.

Good, sweet water is available from an abundant freshwater spring 2 km up the mountain, but is unattainable as the villagers lack everything they need to pipe it into the community. The cost of basic materials like pipes and tools is beyond the community budget, and they lack the technical know-how to implement such a project. Historically, generations of colonizers of the Lacandon jungle dealt with this problem by taking basic precautions like adding iodine or boiling the water—but these are inadequate. Some communities would make do with the most basic of water systems, budget allowing—a makeshift concoction of pipes connected to the nearest water source. If the community was fortunate it might get some institutional support from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), charities, or church organizations. In a region where the government does nothing to provide basic services, water systems are few and far between. The lack of this basic necessity, added to the long list of communities’ grievances and the injustices suffered, ultimately resulted in the Zapatista uprising. Off the political map in the eyes of the state, they are ignored and cast into the void. So, typical for the region, Roberto Arenas has received no institutional support from either government or NGOs.

Without government or state, how does political autonomy work in the Zapatista zone? How do the people organize to get things done, like realizing a water system for the community? In Roberto Arenas, like all Zapatista villages, the community assembly—with representatives from each household—meets in the community hall, weekly—or more frequently if there are things to decide. Together they determine the manner and method of developing their own village, taking into account what resources are available. Decisions are made by the assembly, preferably by consensus. If there is a split and no clear decision, the debates and discussions go on until the assembly reaches a consensus. Occasionally, this can take days on end. This is participatory democracy in action, warts and all.

This kind of assembly-based decision-making process is not unique to the Zapatistas: indigenous communities throughout the region have always worked like this, most likely since pre-colonial times. It is in this forum, that all the major decisions concerning the community are taken – from land issues to community development, to justice—and are then passed on to the relevant commission for fine tuning. The decision to join the Zapatistas and go to war on January 1st, 1994 was taken in such an assembly. And if asked what influence the EZLN has had on the traditional community assembly procedures, compañeros and compañeras will mention how more women and youth are now involved in the decision making than before. Previously the assemblies were dominated by older male members but with Zapatista influence, the old patriarchal ties are not as binding.

So it was that Roberto Arenas decided that their biggest priority was getting a fresh water supply. This necessity was prioritized over other pressing needs, like electricity, new work tools, a hammock bridge to span the river that separated them from the dirt road, and the construction of a church building.

The assembly nominated three water “commissioners” to investigate the matter and to petition the local autonomous council for help and support. The three made their preliminary survey of what would be needed and walked the arduous mountain paths through the jungle, arriving at La Garrucha, the regional autonomous municipality center. They attended the weekly council meetings— or juntas— overseen by the council representatives there by rotation, and attended by community members from any of the several hundred communities in this particular autonomous municipality (one of seven throughout the Zapatista zone of influence). This system of local governance is part of their aspiration to organize in a participatory manner, from the bottom-up instead of the top-down. The Zapatista slogan— to lead by obeying— captures this concept.

The de-facto autonomy of the Zapatista zone is a result of the never-ratified San Andreas Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture negotiated between the EZLN and the Mexican government in 1996. Under provisions of the agreement approved but never sanctioned by the government, majority indigenous municipalities would be granted limited autonomy over land, habitat, exploitation of natural resources, the environment, education, health, and agrarian policies. Authorities and municipal posts would be designated by traditional usos y custumbres(2) instead of being divided up among political parties. In response to the government’s betrayal of the San Andreas agreements, the Zapatistas set up autonomous structures without official state authorization. Such pirate action has resulted in a burgeoning and successful system of rebel autonomy that exists under the constant threat of dismantlement by the Mexican Army.

The three compas of Roberto Arenas patiently wait their turn at the autonomous municipality seat of La Garrucha, prosaically entitled the Good Government Council “The Path of the Future” Caracol. The wait could be days as the business of the municipal council is long and complicated, but eventually they will present their petition. The various representatives listen, take note of the petition, and discuss the project. Everything is taken into account and the three compas return to their village to await the outcome.

The good government committee of the autonomous municipality refer the case to their elected water commission and the options are weighed. The commission consults various parties including the local EZLN commander and clandestine committee members, and so, in the end, after the issue has been bandied around what seems like half the inhabitants of this particular region of the jungle, the community of Roberto Arenas is notified about the eligibility of their request. It’s a process similar to what happens anywhere in the world at a local council level, except for one significant difference: the state authorities have no involvement whatsoever; this is an autonomous process overseen by the communities’ people. There is no separation between who is governed and who is governing—they are one and the same. The various committees and bodies are overseen not by elected or appointed officials, but by members of the community, a duty performed by rotation. Here, in a place off the map, a nowhere of sorts, the people have adopted an enlightened form of governance. This is how an autonomous administration functions. This is peoples' power in action.

And, most significantly, for this particular little story, the decision for the community is… Affirmative! Yes to assigning a water project to Roberto Arenas! So the momentum to bring potable water to the isolated rural community on recuperated Zapatista lands begins. Now to find a way to make it happen!

Not surprisingly, the Zapatista autonomous municipalities are chronically lacking in funding and resources. Revenue comes from their own base—from Zapatista agricultural ventures like coffee or honey, from NGOs (local, national, and international) and from solidarity groups. In the case of getting water to a base community, the municipalities have a couple of options: A fairly basic project—a DIY job—can be self-financed, though is often only a temporary solution. A more sophisticated water system is very costly and requires local engineers and plumbers to be hired to oversee the project. Another option is to petition an NGO or solidarity group to support and realize a community water project.

2. Enter the Water Boys and Girls of Solidarity
The first solidarity-inspired water projects in Zapatista-liberated territory occurred about six months after the 1994 uprising and the initial consolidation of a rebel zone. Activists who had been embedded in Central American war zones during the 1980s arrived to employ their skills, seeing what was happening as a continuation of the anti-imperialist struggle in places like El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. The first water projects were initiated in strategically important communities— like Patiwitz, historical kernel of Zapatista insurgence that was now suffering an internal division because of a split between the main families. The water project had the potential to re-unite the community around a single vital initiative, a piped water system supplying all shared community places—school, church, village basketball court, collective kitchen, etc. Even with the first small projects, the political capital involved in water systems became obvious. A water project not only supplied a village with potable water, but represented a potent political weapon, as well.

More Zapatista sympathizers arrived from other places—around the country and world—keen to get involved in a hands-on way in the Chiapas struggle. One could spend days or weeks idling around a rustic peace camp, accompanying the rebels, or participating in more office-based work like media, fundraising, or compiling human rights reports in San Cristobal de las Casas (the picturesque colonial town that is the regions’ administrative center and tourist hang out). But volunteering on water projects seemed the most practical way to get stuck in, to get your hands dirty (and blistered), and start digging, mixing cement, laying pipes, assembling tap-stands, shoulder to shoulder with the compañeros, the indigenous men, women, and children in the remote and isolated jungle or mountainous communities.

Water projects were a favored occupation in solidarity work, particularly among the more direct-action-oriented, anarcho crowd. By the end of 1996, the initial wave of water project development workers with roots in NGOs, church and Central American leftist organizations, gave way to a fresh new generation of activists who were generally more inspired by the Zapatista model and had a history of anti-authoritarian, anti-systemic organizing in their homelands. So it was that the Water Project collectives came together and formed self-organized and autonomous groups that oversaw the construction of fairly basic, but quite efficient, gravity-fed clean water systems for Zapatista-affiliated communities. Crucially, in turning the NGO-recipient relationship upside down, the solidarity workers operated under the broad jurisdiction of the Zapatista autonomous councils. It was the indigenous peasant campesinos themselves, through their own organization, who decided where and how the national and international solidarity workers went. In a sense, the water project collectives served the Zapatistas. The initial question – what can we do to help the Zapatistas?—tempered by the fire of experience, with a salsa picante of ideology became: What is it that the Zapatistas want us to do?

The point of intersection, or encuentro, between the Zapatista insurgents/base of support and outsiders is in the designated centers in five locations around the rebel zone. Originally known as Aguascalientes (after the famous point of meeting of the revolutionary armies of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata outside Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution), they later became known as the Caracoles (snails, representing slow, solid progress forward)—a place for political and movement connectivity. And it is here, in these important physical spaces, that indigenous base and solidarity activists join, face-to-face, not as idealized figures, but as human beings in the flesh.

So it was that the three Tseltal compañerosfrom the isolated hamlet of Roberto Arenas (population 200) came down from the mountains to speak to the autonomous council of the La Garrucha caracol (population 300) and present their petition for a water system. So it also was that three compañeros from the water project collective came into the jungle from their base in the old colonial town of San Cristobal (population 100,000) in the central highlands of Chiapas, to talk with the autonomous council about their next project…

In what must be considered an extraordinary and fine thing in this day and age of homogeneity, two distinct and unequal worlds merge, indigenous and solidarity workers, find common ground, and begin to work together. And underlining the radical or even revolutionary nature of the endeavor, they attempt to go beyond solidarity—with all its somewhat paternalistic interpretations—and towards reciprocity. People helping each other in the spirit of mutual aid.

3. Journey into the Desert of Solitude
What must Don Sisifo and his two water commission delegates from Roberto Arenas have thought when they set eyes on us— the three “water technicians,” Maria, Praxedis and me—for the first time that morning in La Garrucha?

In our defense, we were weary and disheveled, having left San Cristobal at 2 AM to avoid military and migration checkpoints on the five-hour drive into the rebel zone. We had a pickup truck full of work equipment and our two foreigners, violated tourist visas by entering the designated “conflict zone.” The federal army checkpoint approaching La Garrucha had, surprisingly, been manned, as early as 5 AM. We knew their routine by now, and it was very unusual that the troops were out so early.

“Fuck,” says Maria.
We slow down as we approach. The young soldier is taking his time to come out.
“You know what? Fuck this,” says Maria.
In a decisive act of insolence, she speeds up, swings the 4 Wheel Drive to the other side of the dirt road and drives past the checkpoint. She waves prettily at the guard, who is standing there somewhat dumbfounded, his rifle still by his side.
And we are gone. Around the bend and into the darkness.
“Maria!”
“Fuck them, we got more important things to do than be detained by those assholes.”
“You have no respect for armed men, Maria,” laughs Praxedis.

I remember meeting Maria for the first time a couple of years ago and thinking she came across as quite straight, quite conventional, with the competitive air of a typically ambitious NGO operative. It was a delight to see the mischievous, subversive, and positively scandalous side of her emerge as she engaged more with the Zapatista milieu and copper fastened her political outlook to the extent that she was now one of the most staunch and diehard Zapatista activists around. She still looks totally straight and her militancy is veiled behind a hard-working, hyper-organized, and very capable public persona. Running the military road-block at dawn is definitely a courageous, through somewhat reckless act, but such is Maria: determined and ready to take a chance or two.

So we pull into the nearby Zapatista caracol and feel safe, enveloped in its bosom. The soldiers won’t or can’t pursue us in here.

The Roberto Arenas delegation receives us and we are tired and weary, scruffily attired and resembling a punk rock trio with a penchant for survivalist expeditions. The three campesinos look like…well, three campesinos. Dark rugged faces burnt from the sun; strong, short, angular bodies clad in well-worn, much scrubbed and somewhat ragamuffin clothes. Each carries a machete.

Introductions are modestly made and hands are shaken. Don Sisifo, (3) the community leader does the talking while Juan, his teenage son, busies himself with saddling the horses. Completing their party is Alfredo,(4) a brawny young man who, Don Sisifo informs us, has been designated one of the water responsables (in charge of, responsible for the water project) and who will work closely with us. Alfredo carries himself with some pride. This is apparently the first major post (cargo) of responsibility given to him by the community and he is keen and attentive. We introduce ourselves – Praxedis(5) from Mexico City, Maria from the USA, and me, from Ireland.

“Are you from a foreign NGO?” asks Sisifo.
“No,” explains Maria, “we don’t work for any state institution or formal NGO, we are autonomous solidarity workers. That means we are not sent here by anybody, but come here as activists in solidarity with the Zapatista struggle. We are here to work together doing water projects, not just to bring the community sweet water, but also to strengthen rebel autonomy against the malgobierno [the unjust government].”

The campesinosthank us for our solidarity with the cause and for helping the community. Don Sisifo addresses us as “compañeros” and “compañera” which is a noteworthy first step. They seem extremely shy and reticent and we think it might be that they are not terribly confident communicating in Spanish. Unfortunately, none of us speaks their mother tongue, Tseltal.

Since the autonomous municipality authorities granted us permission to conduct an initial feasibility study, we propose that we get to work immediately, to draw up an engineering and work plan with the community, and sign a contract. If all goes well, within about eight to ten weeks, there should be a functioning system delivering clean water into the homes of the village occupants. The campesinos nod readily in agreement.

“Esta bien – it’s all good,” says Don Sisifo, hurriedly. “Vamanos.” Let’s go.

He doesn’t mean to be impolite, but points out that we have a long trek ahead of us and it is best to get going right away, to avoid having to cross the mountain under the scorching midday sun. Don Sisifo tells us we have a five and a half hour hike ahead of us. Three horses carry the water system equipment and materials and we three carry our own backpacks. Sisifo and his teenage son lead the horses, and we plod along in the mud after them while Alfredo takes up the rear.

Before us looms a horizon of mountains and forest. It may not be the heart of darkness, but the Lacandon jungle has its specters, and is known colloquially as the Desert of Solitude. Once, this vast, lush rainforest, covering 6,000 square kilometers(6) was mostly uninhabited, but waves of twentieth century migration by disposed and landless migrants from Oaxaca and Guerrero ensured the slow but steady colonization of this virgin territory. By the 1980s, the rainforest was reduced to about one-third of its original size as, alongside the massive colonization, the government intensified exploitation of the forest with logging and mineral extraction, and large-scale cattle ranching cut vast swathes of pasture from forestland. In this fertile wilderness, campesinos cut out a basic living. The population increased from a few thousand to roughly 400,000. Industry and subsistence farming came in conflict over limited resources. The migrants were caught between their own farming and work seasonally as peons on the farm estates or coffee plantations of wealthy landowners. Poverty and misery, pervaded by a sense of hopelessness, was their lot. Despite the promise offered by the forests, canyons, and glens of the Lacandon region, from the back lands of Chiapas came not development or progress but its antithesis: rebellion. Some people’s solitude or fear is other people’s refuge. It was here amongst the population—the poorest of the poor—that the Zapatista resistance took root. As Sub-comandante Marcos has remarked, “That’s why the Lacandon is what it is—a kind of breathing space at the end of the country.” For ten years the Zapatista rebellion grew in the shadows of the Lacandon Jungle and emerged on January 12th, 1994, as a state-wide insurgency. And so, from a semantic perspective, from the Desert of Solitude was born the War against Oblivion.

The sun is already climbing in the sky and making its presence known as we set off on the trail. With a coordination that no doubt impresses our hosts, I manage to slip and tumble into the river as we cross a rickety bridge. Don Sisifo helps me out of the knee-deep water (politely not laughing, while Maria and Praxedis laugh heartily in unison), and I silently curse myself and my shitty Doc Marten boots, which are already falling apart, and now are drenched to boot. Every step becomes painful.

The first part of the trek is through green, fertile land, and the trail is covered in deep mud—sometimes up to our knees. Around us, as the eye can see, are cultivated fields, corn plots and some cattle pasture. Soon we emerge from this lush ecosystem and begin the climb up the steep paths of the mountainside into more arid territory. After a couple of grueling hours hiking up rough trails, we come upon a bleak ridge, free of agriculture, barren except for a smattering of rugged trees and sparse bush. We sit and take a rest, thirstily sipping at our water supplies. The sun is rising high in the sky and the heat is becoming unbearable.

We use the moment’s respite to ask a few questions of the compas. It’s like extracting blood from a stone, but we do manage to get them talking a little.

“My family came to this region in the 1970s,” Don Sisifo tells us. “We left Oxchuc in the Highlands because there was no more land there. My father joined a group coming to occupy land in the canyons. But the land was poor and we had to keep moving deeper into the mountains. And when the Zapatistas came to the region, many campesinos joined the organization and plans were made for a big land takeover.
“How many campesinosjoined the organization in this region?” I ask.
“I don't know. A lot. Thousands!”
“What happened then?”
“After the uprising in '94, the owners fled and the compañeros took all this land, and so it became re-occupied land. The organization divided the land up between the communities and here we remain.”
How about in Roberto Arenas? Is the land good there?
“Yes, the land is very good. We are the first to plant there. The land gives a lot.”
“And how many Zapatista communities are there in the region?”
“Well, I think about fifty. Some have left the organization.”
“Why?”
“Saber,” he says with a shrug. Who knows...
Now he seems a little uneasy with the interrogation. It is clear that Don Sisifo is a man of few words and he gets a bit flustered. It’s like he doesn’t like hanging around indulging in idle banter.
“Let’s go. We have a long way yet.”

The sun beats down, the mountain trail gets steeper and we are all sweating profusely. But finally, about five hours in, the climbing part is mostly over, and after a final push upwards, we reach the crest and are soon heading slowly downwards into the valley. We descend into the verdant green basin of the Jatate River and here the moist, tropical terrain is cultivated with corn fields and plantain and coffee plantations. Almost at the end of our tether, it’s a huge relief to, at last, arrive at river’s edge, to feel its cool beautiful jungle freshness, and fill our empty water bottles. But we must wait an excruciating 20 minutes of parched pain for the iodine to sanitize the water. I don’t have the will to wait and take a chance after 10 minutes, wolfing down the most delightful liquid I have ever tasted in my life. I am perfectly aware that I will no doubt pay for this impatient indulgence in the days ahead with the runs and cramps, but I don’t care; I am dehydrated and feel like I’m literally dying of thirst. The campesinoseye us with amusement. I notice they don’t appear to even be breaking much of a sweat. As we sprawl about under the shade of an old tree, gulping down water after our heroic march, the campesinostell us that they set out before dawn to meet us in Garrucha, climbing this very mountain—and so this was their second trip today. Even though Maria, Praxedis, and I had worked in these mountains for a good while now, and are in excellent shape, we feel pretty useless at this very moment.

Enjoying a second wind, we stroll the last stretch and finally, five and half hours after we set out, the forest parts and we enter into the flat plain of the village. Roberto Arenas is a picturesque settlement nestled by the side of the broad, majestic Jatate River, surrounded by lush, fertile—if hilly—land. The community centre is located on a wide grassy knoll, flanked on one side by a wooden shack serving as a school, and another that serves as a church. Beyond the village center, there is a scattering of rough, dirt-floored huts where the people live. Despite the rural frugality, it is a very calm and beautiful place. It is not like the other Zapatista villages where I’ve been. There is a strange quietude, an absence of children, and the lack of colorful murals is apparent, unusual for a Zapatista community. Don Sisifo leads us to the school building and apologizes for our rough quarters. No, we all say, it’s wonderful. But where is everyone?

“They are shy. Visitors are unusual here. But you will meet the people soon.”
I notice a few colorfully dressed women peek out shyly from the darkened doorways, and little by little, bands of ragged, shoeless children come out to stare at us, too timid to approach or engage us.
We wave at them and they dart back into the shadows of their houses.
Beneath the tin roof, on few sparse boards serving as walls, we three hang our hammocks and finally rest.

Some time later the good Don Sisifo brings us to his kitchen, and his wife Dolores serves us beans and tortillas, as numerous little kids run around the place. After the long hike, it feels like one of the finest meals of our lives and we eat with such savage appetite that the children laugh at us. Dona Dolores shoos them away. She is a quiet, industrious, middle-aged woman, who speaks to us in a mix of Tzeltal and Spanish, smiles a lot, and makes us feel welcome. Don Sisifo, who is starting to relax a bit more with us and overcome his shyness, begins to explain the situation in the community, the lack of everything—running water, electricity, latrines, a health clinic, teachers for the school, transport to the nearest town, even the lack of basic farming tools. These people have nothing, absolutely nothing except their land, their will to work, and their pride in being Zapatistas. Sisifo himself, he tells us, has been a Zapatista for sixteen years.
How must things have been before he was a Zapatista or before he farmed this occupied land?
Before he has a chance to answer Alfredo, the water responsablecomes in and whispers in his ear.
“It is time,” announces Don Sisifo. “The compañerosfrom the water commission have assembled and are ready to receive you. Lets go.”

We thank Dona Dolores for the food with such overt gratitude that she must think we are a bit mad. She just stands there shaking her head and smiling widely.
“We are happy that you have come,” she says, a gaggle of children hanging from her apron and skirts.

Our first working meeting takes place in the rustic, bare schoolroom, sitting somewhat squashed at child-sized wooden bench and tables, initially with just the two members of the water commission—Alfredo and Vicente—and Don Sisifo. They describe the different options for fresh water supplies, the location of various springs in the surrounding hills and their attributes. We decide the most likely option is a spring some 2 km from the community, situated high enough in the hills to deal with the problem of head or gravity for the water to flow with enough power. The compañeros had begun trying to construct their own water system here last year, DIY style, but ran short on funds. Maria has the most technical and on-the-ground experience of our team and takes charge of the questions and answers.

“Considering this option,” she says,” it sounds like it should be a pretty straight-forward system. But we need to do the survey to be absolutely certain.”

Little by little, as dusk falls, more men and children, returning from their days work in the milpa(7) drift in and gather around our meeting table until there is meeting quorum. In the near pitch darkness of the schoolroom, the men of the community gather around a couple of candles. There is something archaic and holy about the atmosphere, the quiet murmuring, the shadows moving about, the shy humble campesinos, all wearing ragged shirts and pants and boots, shaking our hands and thanking us for coming.

Eventually, all the men and youths of the community are present, as well as a gaggle of pre-teen boys and girls. No women are present because, as we are told, they are preparing the evening meal in their kitchens. Despite the use of water being one of the main preserves of the women—bathing kids, cooking, washing—water systems are perceived as men’s work in the traditional, conservative culture of indigenous communities such as this one.

It is the women (and children) who benefit most directly from piped water in the communities, since it is they who have to bear the burden of carrying the water on their shoulders from the stream or nearest well to the kitchen every single day. On average, they spend about an hour a day fetching water, carrying the ten or fifteen liter vessel mecopal(8) style, with a strap supported by their forehead. Some women balance whole jugs of water on their heads. It is grueling work, balancing this weight on your head over hills and along muddy tracks to the house.
“We will need some women representatives on the water committee,” says Maria.
“Yes,” says Don Sisifo, “we will talk to them.”

Maria takes the lead as our primary spokesperson. At first the campesinos seem confused, looking to me and Praxedis to lead. But as they see us deferring to Maria, they soon enough accept her authority. She speaks slowly and clearly for the benefit of those with basic Spanish, and allows time for a little translation into Tseltal to be done. She explains how we are going to use the most basic, gravity-fed system to pipe water into each house in the community, that the process will take about two or maybe three months depending on the pace of work, and if all goes to plan, the system will function for at least 20 years—more if it is maintained well. The system will consist of 2 km of plastic PVC piping running from the spring to a 13,000 liter cement reservoir tank situated in the village. This will allow for a perennial water supply for every family in the village and take into account a 3.5% annual population growth.

Ultimately, the idea is to not just install the water system, but to train the people at the same time, so they can manage their own system, and maintain and repair it as the years pass. They themselves will oversee the system and all its workings. I reflect: how many people in my world know how their own plumbing system works, beyond turning on the tap? Here these people will learn it all, from source to tap, and this will become part of the arsenal of their community autonomy.

Maria outlines what each party’s responsibilities are. We will all work side by side, but everyone has their more specific role: those in the water team will concentrate on the technical stuff, while community members will provide the labor and a willingness to learn. We solidarity workers will share the burden of the backbreaking work, but our skills lie in the technical field, and Maria emphasizes, we are not bosses, nor well-paid NGO agents; we are fellow compas, and down with the Zapatista struggle.

A compañero called Gordoo—ie Fatso, because he is slightly less lean than the rest of his fellow campesinos—who is the sometime school teacher and best Spanish speaker in the community, steps forward.
“Who pays you to be here then?” asks Gordo. A fair enough question.
“No one pays us, but we get stipends from the water group to cover our expenses. The water group raises money from people who support the work we do. People give money as their form of solidarity with the Zapatista struggle.”
The compañeros discuss this information at length and quite animatedly.
Gordo turns to us after a while and, summing up their conversation with some brevity, says,
“But, the compas want to know why you are here if nobody sent you and nobody is paying you.”

We three visitors look at each other. Christ. International Solidarity—where to begin? Do we start with the international brigades supporting the anti-fascist struggle in republican Spain, 1936? We could begin with what it is not: we are not development workers. It is not about charity. We are not here to provide a safety net for the absence of government infrastructure.
Praxedis, generally a quiet, taciturn person, steps up to explain, putting forward a political and somewhat philosophical explanation:

“It is about political and social justice, compañeros. What can we do to move the Zapatista struggle and the process of autonomy forward? We do it by working together, side by side, with unity of purpose. While we construct the water system together, we will share our basic engineering knowledge with you, and you will be teaching us the ways of the indigenous Zapatista communities. And learning together we not only build a water system, but we also build a bridge of solidarity between both of our political communities, bringing them closer. This is how constructing a water system becomes a concrete manifestation of our solidarity with your rebel autonomy.”

Maria and I stare at him, impressed and feel like bursting out into spontaneous applause. Right on, Praxedis.
After conferring with the compañeros, Gordo turns to address us.
“The compas’s say they are glad that you are here and support the struggle. They offer to build a kitchen for you, and they will bring tortillas and firewood for your duration here—to help with your expenses.”
We offer our thanks in return. We are off to a good start. However it’s getting late and we are ready to sleep. Maria wraps up the meeting, thanking everyone for receiving us. A few questions are asked and then everyone there signs a contract. Many of the men are completely illiterate and sign with a symbol.

The long meeting winds down and the compañerosapproach us one-by-one, shyly shaking our hands and thanking us for coming. It is quite moving, and despite being exhausted, the gesture gives us a little more energy and raises our spirit. We chat a while, answering questions about how many hours it took to travel from our home cities and such like, and finally the last of the compas departs. We three exhausted solidarity activists, a long way from home, hitch our hammocks and fall into deep slumber, despite the swarms of mosquitoes and chaquistas11 biting us. Each bite is a sting, each sting inducing a feverish effect. Sleep comes as a mighty relief.

4. The Cartography of Thirst.

I awake but feel as if I haven't slept. It rained heavily during the night, and the open-sided schoolroom allowed all the valley’s bugs to take shelter under our laminated roof. My face is covered in chaquista(9) bites, and feels aflame. The mosquitoes had a field day too, as the night heat made the sleeping bag unbearable and my exposed arms were bitten extensively. My feet are all fucked up—grotesquely discolored, swollen, and blistered from the five hour march. The others mock me, christening me Trench Foot.

It is shortly after dawn, and a group of men are waiting outside the hut, ready for work. They all carry machetes, a file for the machete, lunch bags with pozol, water mixed with ground corn, and a Zapatista neckerchief, fashioned rebel style. Despite the early hour, they are all jolly, and joke in Tseltal. Somewhat disheveled, we stagger out and ritualistically shake hands with everyone. The compañeros are giddy with excitement; we are still half asleep.

Today is the first step towards bringing piped water to the village: the topographical study. We will do a geological survey of the territory between the mountain spring and the village. It is, in effect, a feasibility study—will the water arrive by gravitational means at all? For the system to function, there has to be sufficient head, or power in the gravity of the channeled water, to journey the two kilometers over hill and dale to the final destination. The study is to establish the altitude difference (the head) between the water source and the projected reservoir tank in the community. It’s a mathematical conundrum, but people with an eye for these things—like Maria—will tell you that if the source is ten meters higher than the village, the piped water will arrive. More recent additions to the water teams, like Praxedis and me, still have to rely on the technical data.

Maria unpacks the transit level, an engineering device that resembles an early-twentieth century tripod camera, is used to measure the angle from it to poles held by compañeros a hundred meters downhill. With that information, considering the angle and distance, using trigonometry and a pocket calculator, we can calculate the head of water, and figure out what size of piping is needed. If the pressure is too strong for a pipe, it will burst. If the pressure is too weak, it won’t travel the distance. More precisely speaking, if the drop in elevation between any point of the pipe system and the spring was to fall below ten meters in the hilly terrain, an air-lock could develop and an expensive valve would have to be installed to prevent a block.

We are all set, but the good Don Sisifo notices the three technicians are still reeling from yesterday’s endeavors. Breakfast in his house, he proposes, while the other men go off to prepare the trail through the mountain with their machetes. We retreat to his house.

There is a warm, nesting environment about this simple hut, filled with children, chickens, ducks, cats, and dogs. Don Sisifo pours water upon our hands—a campo cleansing ritual—before we eat. Dona Dolores smiles kindly and remains quiet and receptive to our perceived demands. On a rough table, we are served eggs and beans and tortillas. It tastes absolutely delicious. We eat in silence, humbled, and slightly embarrassed by the family, all standing in corners watching over us, as if to make sure we are completely satisfied. Spartan and clean, the dirt-floor hut is filled with gentle smoke from the open fire and the delicious smell of cooking tortillas. We sip sugary coffee from metal cups. The children gaze upon us with wonder, as if we, as caxlanes12—that is, outsiders—eat in some extraordinary manner. Dona Dolores is demure and polite; and we reciprocate. Despite a thousand insect bites and little sleep (and let’s not forget trench foot) we feel ridiculously pampered, our bellies full and sated.

Around 8 AM we set off over the hills and towards the spring, a two kilometer journey. The mud is heavy and the surrounding forest rich and fecund. Up at the spring, we are happy to see that the compas have already made a solid concrete spring box as part of a previous attempt to build a water system here. Water has been walled in at the source to form a well that funnels the liquid into an exit-flow valve. A difficult job, pitting gushing spring water against stone and mortar with the time it takes cement to dry. So we "water techies" are satisfied that we are off to a good start, as two or three days of planned labour have already been done. What’s here is a solid wall, a good spring box. It’s not how we would have constructed it, but it’s obviously appropriate to the site. We measure the flow of the water, a litre every nine seconds—a good and strong flow. Maria takes a water sample in a bottle for chemical and bacteriological tests that will be done back in a clinic in San Cristobal.

The spring is situated in a lush bower, surrounded by a dense forest of old-growth trees. The compañeros clear the brush around the spring and then start on the trail where we will dig a trench to bury the pipes. Machete in one hand and a clawed stick to pull back the debris with the other, the campesinos go to work with precision. Gordo is in charge of the measuring tape. As the occasional math teacher in the school, he has, unlike the others, a good grip on measurements. He takes the lead in measuring the path 100 meters at a time through the forest, across gullies, up and down hills, and across streams. He’s an outgoing guy and speaks good Spanish, is constantly inquisitive and asks all the right questions. Soon he is calculating the gradation with the transit, and teaching other campesinos how to do it. The shining sun, the hum of activity, and productive work, informs the pleasant nature of our activities. In the broadest pedagogical sense, the compas are already doing it for themselves.

Maria sets off early the next day with Don Sisifo to survey the community and to make a detailed map we’ll use to design the pipeline. She will visit each of the twenty three houses to talk to the occupants about the project, and will take the opportunity to meet the women and ask them of their specific water needs.
Accompanied by Vicente and Alfredo, the two responsableswho will be in charge of overseeing the ongoing maintenance of the water system, Praxedis and I are dispatched up the mountain to fortify the spring box. Machete in hand, we hack through the thick undergrowth all the way to the source of the fresh water. It’s September, the rainy season has been an abundant one, and the mud is so deep that we are sometimes struggling up to our knees. The clearing at the spring is a truly enchanting place, filled with a dizzying array of plants, trees, and animal life. This virgin water, running anciently and mysteriously out of the deep earth, is gorgeous and cool to touch. We are surrounded by the powerful perfume of feral nature blooming and blossoming. The pungent odor of decay and growth, of lush ecosystems and regeneration permeates the air.
We begin to dam the spring, in order to stop leaves and debris from entering the capitation tank and blocking the pipes. We can also use heavy rocks from the surrounding area to construct a solid wall. One of the compas strips off and wades into the water digging up half-submerged rocks. I scout the area and notice, almost invisible in the dense foliage, an encampment. Tables and chairs and posts hued from branches and forest wood around a campfire pit. Now it is overgrown and obviously derelict, but my imagination bounds. I’m certain it's a guerrilla encampment, used by a group of transient Zapatistas. Even though there has not been any combat since the early days of 1994, rumors still abound about the presence of EZLN guerrillas in the mountains. Hidden from public view, they have become the stuff of village lore. Have I stumbled across something I was not meant to see? Of course, beside a freshwater spring, and hidden deep below the forest canopy, is an ideal location for a clandestine camp. I cast my gaze around and notice a variety of wooden structures that look vaguely familiar from diagrams in Che Guevara’s Manual For Guerrilla Warfare. It seems a magical place, filled with clandestinity and memories, resonant of dreams and struggle.

“Vicente!” I call. “What's this encampment over here?"
He looks at me curiously, “This is where we held a ceremony on Santa Tomas Day, the day to bless the water…"
That was a little disappointing.
But it is not like the compas are hiding their affiliation. As we work, Vicente and Alfredo, little by little, begin to open up and chat to us, telling us a little of their lives and tales.
We break for a mid-morning snack of matz, a corn porridge drink popular in these parts. I remember first trying it a few years ago when I began working in the zone, and almost vomited. Other volunteers did vomit. Just took a swig of the heavy, ground down corn and water, and, straight up, vomited. It’s slightly fermented flavor makes it an acquired taste, which I think I have acquired now. It leaves a bitter taste in your mouth and lots of residue, but it is filling and, as the compas never tire of telling you wherever you go in these canyons—matz gives you strength.

Vicente is a young man in his early twenties, married with two little kids. Although short in stature, he appears sturdy and strong, muscles bulging everywhere, and exudes good health. Must be the matz.
His family came from further down the valley because there was no land left in his community for the next generation. He, like most of the landless youngsters there, joined the Zapatistas to fight for new land. He tells us how on January 1st 1994, his unit descended upon the town of Ocosingo, and fought the military. They lost some compañeros in the battle.
“My brother Jorge fell,” he relates, and falls into silence, ruminating upon his dead sibling.
“Sorry,” we say.
Alfredo, who is a couple of years older than Vicente, and has a couple of kids more, participated in the takeover of Ocosingo too. The battle of the market a few days later was one the worst in the whole war. Dozens of compañerosand civilians were killed after the army surrounded them in the town market. He doesn’t say much about it.
“It was very hard,” says Alfredo, “but we managed to escape out the back way. Many of our compañeros were not so lucky.”
Since the conversation has taken a dark turn, I change the subject.
“Are you two related?” I noticed when they introduced themselves, that one’s name was Lopez Santiz, and the other Santiz Lopez.
“We are second cousins.”
They begin to explain but it gets complicated. A lot of Lopez and Santiz marrying each other and it seems almost everyone in the community is connected by family in some way or the other. I suppose that explains the one-big-happy-family atmosphere all around.

Back to work, the supply of water gushing out of the exit pipe is plentiful and we hook up the connections with a flood-gate valve, a globe valve, and a metal ring to connect the supply to the first roll of the PVC pipe. We do everything slowly and carefully, wrapping all the parts with tape; if everything is done well this water system should work suitably for twenty five years. However, there are a few problems with the materials—the floodgate valve is slightly malfunctioning. Because of budget restrictions we had to buy a cheap model, and this has proven a bad call. Vicente curses the device, blaming it on sub-standard Chinese engineering. I am surprised that this particular prejudice reached even here, the heart of the Lacandon Jungle. Praxedis considers the defective piece from a different perspective.
“Probably forced prison labor.”
Nevertheless, it functions, and we decide to leave it be. And so the spring is ready to start feeding a pipe network. All we need to do is get the pipes here.

Back at base, all the men have gathered outside the school for a water workshop. We invite them in and as they ask a few questions I notice that, though guarded, they are slightly less shy towards us techies—a good sign.

Maria begins a short presentation on water and health, and after a while mentions that it would be useful to have the women present for this too. She points out that it would be good to include them in the process, not least because water is a primary concern of the women. The men talk amongst themselves in Tseltal and eventually, Gordo turns to us and explains that the women are busy in the kitchen at the moment, but they will participate in the next stage.

Not wanting to push it, Maria continues, explaining the details of the water system, basic engineering, and finally, that the cost of the system will be covered by the project, but each individual household will have to pay for its own tap-stand, about 100 pesos, or $10 US. The project pays for public tap-stands, but private ones cost. The thinking behind the strategy is that people will take more care of the system if they have paid a little money into it.

Gordo has translated all, but at this point, a problem arises. A heated discussion ensues between the assembled men but, we are not privy to the details.
“The compas are discussing,” is all Gordo will tell us, although it is obviously about the cost, as the word tak’in—money—is bandied about a lot.
We are witness to how the indigenous Zapatistas make decisions and come to agreement: the argument flows back and forward in the gravelly clack of the Tzeltal tongue for half an hour. Almost everybody has their say, and eventually they come to a decision by consensus. Everybody is onboard.
“The compassay it is all fine,” says Gordo. And that is it—we have no idea what they were discussing or why, but we are told its all OK. I suppose in the same manner that we tell the compas everything is fine with the topographical study and they shouldn’t worry about it. There is a distinct problem in communication and we have not quite yet bridged the gap. It is something we need to work on.

Praxedis and I retire back to the schoolhouse at dusk. Maria is elsewhere, staying with a family. The village seems deserted, except for the sound of the children play-marching around in the distance, chanting Zapatista slogans. The sadness of the dirt-floor school-house, empty but for a few rustic wooden desks, a ragged map of the world and a chalk board with the remains of a short list of names written on it. A few dusty books on a shelf, and a forlorn compass. But mostly, it is the sense of interruption, like the school stopped functioning one day and everything is caught in a purgatory of waiting.

5. Trench Warfare

It’s now 5:20 AM. I am probably the last person out of bed in the whole community. I can hear people active all around the valley in the crepuscular dawn: preparing tortillas, chopping wood. There are children laughing, babies crying, dogs barking. The little huts dotted around the horizon glow with soft fires. It’s noticeably quiet in the absence of cars, machinery, and electronic devices.

The heavy lifting for the water project starts today. Praxedis and I are going to oversee the strengthening of the spring box, while the compañeros begin digging the two kilometer trench to the distribution tank in the village. We will lay the pipes in the ditch, one 100-meter roll at a time, and connect them. The plan is to have water flowing through the pipe to the community in one week’s time.

Maria calls a meeting with Don Sisifo and the water responsables, and together they hatch a plan. We work collectively, but some personalities are more dynamic than others when it comes to making things happen, and Maria is one of them. Maria pours over charts and maps and works out the engineering of the project, consulting Don Sisifo and showing him the plans, and people get down to business.

Outsiders working in the zone often get carried away and think they know it all. Academics would call it “the pathology of privilege”—where individuals from the US, Europe, or indeed, urban metropolises like Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Sao Paulo, think they have all the answers, and think that people on the ground—rustic indigenous, “backward” and uneducated—exist as mere receptors of their great knowledge.

We’re aware of this pattern and try to deal with it as best we can. Maria, as the brains of the operation, combats this pathology, or paternalistic attitude, by prioritizing the perspective of the community, the grassroots, at all levels of decision making and learning. By putting the indigenous voice and opinion first and then focusing on the process, our progress might be slower or our efficiency less—as we explain everything and involve the locals every step of the way—but that’s the nature of the work and goal. It’s not just that the water must be delivered, but that the people participate and become owners of their own system. They take control of their everyday life, heighten the community’s self-organization and strengthen their ability to pursue their social, political, economic and cultural goals and growth—this is autonomy. Revolution from the bottom up.

The twenty-one compañeros have begun digging in earnest with the new tools, dividing the trench up into ten-meter sections. Each man works at his own pace using pick, shovel, and machetes to hack through roots. A couple of youngsters move up and down the ditch with heavy mallets breaking cumbersome rocks that impede the trench. As they zoom ahead, it’s clear that these men can really work and they are highly motivated, but upon closer inspection, the trench seems too shallow in most places—only fifty centimeters when ideally it should be seventy. So we have to assume the overseer role, telling the toiling campesinos to dig deeper. We feel guilty—like we’re bosses—this notion that we are “engineers” overseeing the operation while the others toil and labor digging through the rocks. It sucks.

I remember picking coffee alongside peasants in Nicaragua—people as poor as here in Roberto Arenas—and the mood was always boisterous and noisy. There was always salsa or some other form of raucous music blasting from battered tape recorders, and the sound of singing and laughing and shouting and arguing and playing around. Here everything is done more in silence than sound. Quietude abounds. Now, of course, digging a ditch is hardly easy-going work compared to picking coffee but here, no matter what the task, it is done very quietly. People talk their soft clicking language in hushed tones. The compas don’t make any sound when they walk. The silence becomes surreal. It’s like living in a waking dream populated by phantasmagorias, remote people who move fleetingly in and out of shadows and reflections. Not better, no worse, just different.

We dine in Dona Dolores’s kitchen, enveloped, of course, in rich silence. The food is reduced to just the basics: beans and stale tortillas—and we reckon it’s probably time to set up in our own kitchen and stop imposing on this kind family. A group of women and teenage girls are lingering around the doorway of the kitchen. We attempt to engage them—particularly Maria—but they are ferociously shy, and turn away giggling when addressed. Being the first caxlanes(10) to work (or even visit) in this hamlet, we feel a pressure to break through this wall of wary distance, particularly among the women. So far they seem unsure how to deal with us. Shy and withdrawn, they give us all the space in the world and appear to try to make us feel welcome without actually saying anything. They assume a most humble demeanour, besides the fact that few of them speak Spanish, rarely addressing us . As with the men, the women, too, use the common moniker "compa" hesitatingly, and sometimes completely disregard it for the more polite “Don” (or “Dona” for Maria). We feel uneasy using the familiar "tu" form when speaking with them, as if it might be perceived as patronising instead of comradely.(11)
“Compañera,” begins Dona Dolores, addressing Maria.
”Si, compañera?”
“The compañeras would like to invite you to visit the hortaliza [vegetable garden] with them tomorrow. They would like you to see their work and the food they are growing. Will you accept the invitation?”
“Of course! I would love to!”
Dona Dolores relates this news to the gaggle of young women lingering in the doorway.
“And can the compañeros, Praxedis and Ramon, come along too?” asks Maria.
Dona Dolores asks the women in Tseltal.
“Yes, they say. They are welcome.”
As they leave, each one comes in to the kitchen and delicately shakes our hands. Maria, Praxedis, and I are delighted. It is a big thrill to get invited to the hortiliza. The community is opening up to us!
We feel the quiet glow of incipient acceptance.

I have begun to read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness by candlelight. I didn’t choose the book for any special reason—it just appeared as I left San Cristobal so I put it in my backpack. I didn’t like it when I read it in college, years ago, and I don’t like it now, but it is quite an apt book for this jaunt. Not so much for the jungle location, nor the white man’s experience in alien cultures, and the reminder of a brutal colonialist past—although these are useful subjects to dwell on—but for the comparison between the torment these early capitalist adventurers suffered in Congo at the hands of the locals, compared to the rich, enveloping welcome we receive from our hosts. Of course, while we may be the first outsiders/foreigners ever to step foot in this hamlet we are not extracting mineral wealth, enslaving the locals or whipping them to work harder, but volunteer comrades who support their revolt and are working with them. Some would say that, as activists, we are extracting something more precious than all the coveted metals in the world: hope. It’s something to take back with us to our homelands and our own political struggles, but I think that is a cynical take. Anyhow, who is going home? Where is home? We are here to stay, throwing our lot in with the Zapatistas and even if we are extracting hope, dreams, metaphysical wealth, in receiving we are doing our best to give back as well.

It is a fine thing to read Heart Of Darkness critically, as a lived-experience rather than a literary text to study. So while Conrad may be attempting to portray the Heart of Darkness as the white man’s soul’s descent into horror in the bleakness of darkest Africa, we subscribe more to the political critique of Chinua Achebe. That Nigerian author sees Conrad’s book more useful as a study of the despicable nature of raw capitalist exploitation and the ideology of imperialism that renders Africa “a place of negations,” devoid of history, culture, and language. Worse still, Africa and its people serve as a mere backdrop for Conrad, in which he explores the mental disintegration of one rogue imperialist. As usual, it is all about whitey.

“Can nobody see the preposterous and perverse arrogance,” writes Achebe, “in thus reducing Africa to the role of props for the break-up of one petty European mind?”
The heart of darkness, the "horror, the horror" that Conrad discovers, is not the Congo jungle environment, nor the savage, cannibal natives, but the morally repugnant nature of the white colonizer’s endeavours there within.
Of course, we as solidarity activists, place ourselves more in the tradition of another whitey, the Irish revolutionary Roger Casement, who famously exposed the barbarity of the European operated rubber trade in Congo in his Casement Report of 1904, and subsequently organized a successful worldwide campaign against such brutal capitalist exploitation. Casement was initially positioned in the Congo as a British consul, but in an early harbinger for international solidarity practice, he turned his position of privilege into a weapon for justice against the marauding imperialism.
Conrad and Casement were in the Congo at the same time and serve as interesting contrasts, showing how two people can look upon the same situation from different perspectives. Where Conrad saw the horror of a white man’s mind disintegrating, Casement saw the horror of a culture and people being decimated.

So Heart of Darkness is a fitting book to accompany the work, lots of food for thought as we spend the next few days laying the lines and digging the trench. Carrying heavy and bulky 1 inch rolls of plastic pipe to the point where the water flows from the last pipe, we stagger past the men toiling in the trench and hook the pipes up to the line. Then we busy ourselves with more technical details, figuring out pressure and head and mapping the territory. And I wonder what the compañerosare thinking of us? Maria, Praxedis, and I, dilettantes fiddling with the pipes while they do the heavy lifting, and digging? Because we are “engineers”—ahem, intellectual workers—we are exempt from the hard labor?

“Time to join the compas at the coalface,” Praxedis suggests, and Maria and I are on-board.
Putting aside the pipes and our “engineer” caps, we pick up hoes and get working with the compañeros on the trench. After the initial mirth—men put down their tools just to watch the caxlanes digging the ditch, particularly a woman caxlan!—our proximity and shared endeavour ultimately allows for a new intimacy.
“The men are impressed that you can dig,” Vicente, the water responsable tells us.
“We thought rich people couldn’t do hard labor like us indigenous.”
Which is ironic, of course—we can dig and have done so throughout our lives. Will I tell him how I worked on various construction sites across Europe since I was a teenager? Or that Maria was a gardener and carpenter, and Praxedis has done every kind of physical labor imaginable in Mexico City and beyond? Neither are we rich! But it is all relative. I suppose we aren’t condemned to a life of eternal labor without remittance. Their toiling Sisyphus to our fanciful Jason searching for golden fleeces.(12)

But soon such cerebral meanderings are superseded by the discomfort and pain of the hard, monotonous digging. Hands are covered in fresh blisters, muscles ache, backs are sore, and the sun beats down unmercifully. The soil is hard and stony, and teeming with life: worms, insects, and various strange and tiny creatures. Soon my hands and arms are coated with sticky mud and flies loiter irritatingly around my sweaty head. And then, with sudden intensity, a tropical rain shower drenches us and everything else for ten dramatic minutes, and just as abruptly, the sun reappears and we are dry and parched again. And when we rest on our picks and shovels, conversations strike up. Other compas join in a discussion with Maria, Praxedis, and me about Heart of Darkness. We give a brief outline of the plot and the events of the book. The compas are not terribly shocked about the conditions in Congo—a place none have heard of—or the gruesome punishments such as cutting off the hands of unproductive, rubber-extracting native workers.
“Such things occurred on the fincas [plantations] in the time of our fathers and grandfathers,” says Gordo.
“Or worse,” says Alfredo.
“Much worse,” says Vicente.
“In the time of our great-grandfathers such things happened all the time,” Gordo says, authoritatively.
“The indigenous who slaved long hours logging the great trees by hand for the big companies, were beaten and flogged, hung alive from trees and left for days and nights in the jungle.”

Ah yes, the infamous mahogany industry of Chiapas in the early 1900s as documented by the other book I am reading at the moment, B. Traven’s Rebellion of the Hanged. Traven describes scenes to match the worst of the Congo excesses as the mahogany cutters on the monteria (labor camps) rebel against their intolerable conditions and start a local revolution.

Traven, a mysterious German anarchist who fled Europe after the failed Bavarian Soviet uprising in Munich, 1919, wound up in Chiapas, and reputedly lived for several years amongst indigenous tsotsils in the isolated highlands. His six famous books, which are set in this region—“the Jungle Novels”—are an interesting literary contrast to Heart of Darkness. Traven turns the all-pervasive ‘whitey in exotic lands’ perspective—a narrative I’m sure you dear reader are quite getting bored with by now—on its head. Narrated from the indigenous perspective instead of the colonialists, it ends with insurrection, rather than capitulation. Though in contrast to Roger Casement, the clandestine Traven didn’t engage in any kind of solidarity with the wretched of the earth whom he found himself among, nor did he start a campaign, or join a revolution—he merely wrote stories about what he saw and heard and imagined.

“One becomes a philosopher,” wrote Traven, “by living among people who are not of his own race and who speak a different language … A trip to a Central American jungle to watch how Indians behave near a bridge won’t make you see either the jungle or the bridge or the Indians if you believe that the civilization you were born into is the only one that counts. Go and look around with the idea that everything you learned in school and college is wrong.”(13)

6. Women Working
Dawn outside. Light creeps slowly into this mountain-framed valley. Horses move around outside in the grass, pigs and chickens loiter. It’s 6 AM.
“Wake up, imperialists!” says Praxedis—already doing push-ups outside the doorway. He mocks Maria and me for being quasi-imperialists because we have brought mosquito nets to cover our bare board beds. And we have sleeping bags. How indulgent!

Today has the makings of an exciting day because we have a date to visit the ladies in their vegetable garden! Accordingly, it means we are only working a half day in the trench, because the limited supply of hoes is needed for the hortiliza. My whole body sighs in relief.
Our field kitchen is very basic—a wood fire upon an earthen table—and we emerge to find Praxedis has kindly prepared eggs and an ocean of coffee. Our food supplies are tied from the roof in bags because the rats are having midnight feasts of whatever is left on our lone shelf. There are ants everywhere. Nevertheless, it feels homey and we are content here. Garbed in our now-muddy, ripped, and well-worn working clothes; heavy boots caked in mud; machetes by our sides, we set off. Every day we resemble the compass more, except that their clothes and boots, despite being well worn, are always immaculately clean and fresh every morning. The men’s wives—the clothes washers—are doing a great job.

The men are already up in the trench, digging away. By midmorning, the temperature will soar above 40 degrees celsius. Even they look completely knackered by working in this heat—some look close to heat exhaustion. Each has their quota of ten meters a day, and on scorching days like this, it must feel like ten kilometers. We notice some men are only going down thirty cm on the rocks, which is not good enough—must dig deeper!—but to not to sap morale on this challenging day, we decide not to say anything. We can come back to it later.

Meanwhile, we three caxlanes are too parched to dig a second longer, and, recognizing our own personal limits, busy ourselves preparing rolls of pipe and coupling connections. It’s time to hook up another three rolls of pipe—300 meters more in total.

A group of compañeros unroll the pipe by hoisting the heavy tubing on a pole and unwinding it awkwardly. If it gets kinked, the tubing cracks, rendering it useless, so this job has got to be done right. It is slow, tricky work.

The tubes are laid out in the trench, but now connecting the pipes is proving difficult. We need to insert short plastic couplings between the two pipe-ends, and the problem is that it’s always a tight fit, and the connection needs to be made with force. And the whole exercise is complicated further because water is flowing out of one of the pipes with plentiful force. Time and time again we heat the hard PVC with the highly flammable oil resin ocote, then push and huff and puff and pull and get wet and fall over and the coupling just won’t fucking go in! Not enough lubrication! Once more, and somewhat comically, Praxedis and I face each other, heat up the pipes, and trust down, pushing with all our might, grunting and gasping. The spectacle brings more compas around to watch the show. They laugh and whistle and act as if it is the funniest thing ever. Eventually, kid gloves off, we both exercise maximum force—strained muscles, Neanderthal screams, and it finally slides in. It’s still half inch shy of being flush but fuck it, we say, let’s put on double braces to secure. I had indeed forgotten the joys of putting that stuff together.

Now the line is 500 meters long, but the water is gulping out in spurts, suggesting an air-bubble further up the line. So we fiddle about with the reservoir tank at the spring, securing the globe-valve even more tightly, trying not to interrupt the flow of water. This constant revision and tinkering is time consuming but obligatory—it’s what “engineers” do.

It is time to visit the hortaliza. The patch is located a little beyond the community, down a small valley beside the river—a pretty location with easy access to water. About fifteen women are gathered there, many with babies on their backs, rebozo style, (14) and lots of very small kids are playing at the edge of the patch. Each woman wears the traditional dress, a blaze of lurid primary colors, and each has a machete or hoe in hand. They greet us cheerfully, and half of them, the younger ones, are giggling uncontrollably, at what exactly, I don’t know, but it is amusing to see. So we are all off to a smiley start.

The vegetable patch is roughly a square half-acre of well-worked soil in raised beds, enclosed by a chicken wire fence. In one luxuriant corner a blaze of green vegetables are beginning to spout.

“The women’s collective began the hortaliza earlier this year, after we attended a workshop in the caracol,” explains Dona Dolores, who seems to act as the spokesperson for the rest, and whose command of Spanish is greater than she had been initially letting on. She is referring to the regular hortaliza workshops in the Zapatista center at La Garrucha. “The compañeras learned how to improve the diet of the children, to give them more vitamins.”

Were there vegetables in the community before?
“A little,” replied Dona Dolores. “Just what people grew in their backyard. But this hortaliza produces plenty for every family.”
With a tap on location—as is planned with the water project—it will be easier to water the hortaliza and will be more efficient.
We are shown around the budding rows of cabbage, celery, onions, tomatoes, and radish, all grown without chemical fertilizer—it is organic. The soil in the raised beds is loamy and well drained. The women have begun turning over the soil to begin another larger growing patch. They received a batch of new seeds at the Caracol, and are planting today. These women are no strangers to agricultural work of course. Apart from kitchen work, raising children, tending to livestock in the yard, they also work in the family corn-patch, whether planting, weeding, or harvesting. So the hortaliza is one more responsibility on top of an already busy schedule.

And yet, everyone is cheery and excited by the tasks at hand. What is noticeable is the unity of purpose in their manner of working. They line up and work together at the same pace, side by side, raking the earth, and moving in cohesion, almost as one. It seems a very natural, collective way of working.

If solidarity is unity of purpose or togetherness, then these women have perfected it. But it’s not just solidarity; it is something else. Nobody told every one to get in line and work in tandem, they just moved instinctively into place and form a single, non-separated body. This kind of cohesion is born in community, of people living in each others’ shadows. This isn’t solidarity—not even reciprocity—it is more an intrinsic form of community harmony.

And so the afternoon evolves and we all lend a hand—raking, weeding, planting—busy as bees. The compañera’s are so good-humored, and despite language difficulties, laughter blossoms between us. At the finish, a young compañera, Adelita, invites us to her house to eat.
She is a gregarious twenty-something-year-old woman with an easy silver-toothed smile, and, having overcome her initial shyness with us, reveals a good command of Spanish. She and Maria are getting on famously.

Adelita’s house is typical for Roberto Arenas: wooden structure, earthen floor, and sheet metal roofing, but it is warm and welcoming, and the cooking fire in the corner is like a hearth. She lives with her mother, brother, and her two children. We ask about her husband, and she replies only “He is gone,” not revealing whether he left or died.

Sunlight flickers through the cracks in the wall and the beams of light dance around the smoke from the fire that Dona Consuela, Adelita’s elderly mother, tends. It’s a sumptuous rustic vision that disguises the deadly effects of the open fire—it causes so many pulmonary ailments for the kitchen workers—predominantly the women of the house.

We are served beans on freshly made corn tortillas. It is a delicious treat. The rest of the family lingers in the background and, breaking protocol a little, we insist that they join us at the table.

We don’t really talk much, just compliment the food, laugh with the children, and ask a few questions, which Adelita translates for her mother. The family came from a community further up the valley and we learn that Dona Consuela has never been to “the city”—Ocosingo—having spent her whole life in the forest and mountains. Adelita has been to the city and that is why she has a little Spanish. She explains that she brought her little five-year-old daughter there for medical attention. The gorgeous little girl, named Marisol, smiles widely as she hears her mother mentioning her name. “Marisol was very sick, and we had to take her to the nearest hospital in Ocosingo. She almost died. But, thank God, now she is almost better.”
“What was wrong with her?”
“Measles,” she explains. “With diarrhea, and pneumonia.”
We all look at this smiling, shining orb of a child, and thank God too.
Maria hugs her.

As the night begins to envelop us, we sit in comfortable silence around a single candle. There is only sound of the crackling log fire in the corner and the flickering shadows from the soft flame dancing on the rough wooden walls as we journey towards night.

As we leave, we shake hands with everyone, and Dona Consuela talks to us directly and quite earnestly in tseltal. She then gives each of us a glancing embrace.

“My mother thanks you for coming here and helping the poor people. May God bless you.”

It is a very touching gesture. We are all a little speechless and feeling very humbled we stumble out of the smoky hut into the quiet night,

7. Digging with Conrad

And the next day we lose Maria. While Praxedis and I sleep soundly—as is wont in the jungle—accompanied by a rich, evocative dreamscape, poor Maria spent the night running for the nearby bushes, emptying her entire insides again and again, the victim of some foreign agent. It doesn’t matter how long one spends in the communities, one is always liable to fall prey to a vicious tummy bug. Shit happens. We all know what it is like, this spontaneous evacuation of the entire contents of one’s bowels; we all hate it, fear it, and can’t avoid it. The horror, the horror. So Maria has been vomiting and shitting all night along, and now she is lying on her bed—pale, groaning softly—and there is nothing to be done. “I can’t move,” she says. Don’t worry, stay there, we’ll bring you water, it will pass.
There is no point giving her anything to eat. Everything will come up or out immediately. Water with a little salt will be the sum total of her input today.

Praxedis and I leave her to rest and we head to work. We bump into a gaggle of children, who ask
“Where’s Maria?”
“In bed, sick.”
And they rush off to see their favorite gringa. No rest for the weary, but at least she will have company.
And then there were two. We, the water team, are having a disastrous week, health-wise: I sliced my hand with a machete while cutting wood for the kitchen fire, adding to my two festering blisters from working the pick. I wrap my wounded mitt in bandages and tie it in my old Zapatista palicate, rendering the scarf less ornate than when I sport it, revolutionary chic, around my neck. The same day, Praxedis slipped in the watery ditch, twisting his ankle and almost putting his back out. We have to laugh at ourselves; we resemble a mini-disaster zone for petty ailments. At least my trench foot from the journey over the mountains is getting better now. I come across more debonair when not limping like Quasimodo.

Despite the battlefield conditions today, we advance.

And now, it’s porter time! Not the Guinness, but the one-inch pipes. One hundred meters of it—thirty kilos worth to be portered over one kilometer. We are connecting more sections of pipe and getting soaked in the process. What does it matter though, when there is a sudden and instant downpour—a flash flood, as such? The heavens open and a deluge is unleashed; an astonishing exhibition of the sublime power of nature. We smile disconsolate and continue the slog, wet to the bone, and splashing about in pools of rain that have filled the trench, and it is comically absurd.

Soon we’re connecting the pipes again with glee. When they slide in as they should we are elated, and when it’s not happening, we’re incessantly frustrated. Today the work flows well, and Vicente smiles at us. We smile back; a smile of complicity, of fraternity, not a mask of a smile. Other compas still treat us referentially or as objects of bizarre interest. They laugh at our antics, but not with us. It’s an important breakthrough, Vicente and Gordo and a few others are smiling withus. Midday, we make our way home in the mud, covered head to toe, soaked, but content that we did three rolls today and water now flows steadily out of the pipes at 900 meters—almost half-way there. The compas are encouraged to see it functioning.

In the afternoon, Praxedis and I join the men in the trench to dig, and as usual I fuck myself up, gouging out a piece of my palm with the pick. Adding that to the wickerwork of cuts, blisters, and sores, I have a proper medical case in my hands alone. Today I’m feeling the dying. My limbs are sore, covered in cuts and blisters, aches and pains everywhere.
“This labor is hard on the body. Are you suffering, Ramon?” asks Gordo sympathetically.
He gets an earful of grumbles and complaints. I show him my mangled hands.

But nothing compares to putting things in perspective. Gordo begins to wax lyrical about various accidents and injuries sustained by people here in the community. Like the compa who chopped his thumb off with a machete, the kid who fell into the river and almost drowned, and—the most chilling, the compa Alberto, who poked himself in the eye with a stick as he dug a hole and lost the eye, because it took him a day to get himself to the nearest clinic. At the state hospital in Ocosingo, they decided to remove the injured eye rather than treat it, cheaper probably. There he is, the same Alberto who accompanied us over the mountains, still wandering around with a paliacate tied around his head. I had assumed he had a temporary infection or something, but the notion that he has that neckerchief tied over his missing eye for the rest of his life is deeply disturbing.
OK. That puts me in place; I shut up about my minor woes.

Returning to the schoolhouse in the afternoon, we are greeted by the cutest sight: little Marisol, Adelita’s daughter, is sitting by the edge of Maria’s bed as she sleeps. The child is watching over her through her illness.

Praxedis cooks up some lovely rice and beans, and a couple of kids drop off some hot tortillas in a pretty napkin—fine delicious tortillas, handmade of corn grown in the milpas just on the other side of the hill. Absolutely scrumptious. Don Sisifo drops in to the kitchen. He is upbeat and happy with the progress.

“The compas are very content,” he tells us. “It is all good.”
He lingers a few seconds in the doorway. Will he actually chill out, stay for a moment, and chat for the first time ever? No, he quickly excuses himself after informing us that he has some fences to mend. Well built, sturdy and muscular, he is a relentless work machine. When carrying cement or whatever on his back, mecopal style, he assumes the gait of a sturdy shire horse. Although a comparison to a Greek god would be more appropriate than a shire horse, the metaphor remains constant: Don Sisifo, the man who never, ever stops laboring.

Like this new day, which, like the day before, brings more toil: hours and hours of digging under the hot sun. Don Sisifo leads by example, and he is the first to carry the plastic rolls, clambering up and down gullies, over boulders, along rough riverbank, acting like it’s a stroll in the park—as if work absolves the body, sweats out impurities. Prompted by his lead, the compas dig faster. This particular section of the dig, in the river basin, is through pure soil. With no roots or rocks, things move more swiftly. Everyone is quite happy. The sun is shining majestically and Praxedis and I have got the joining of the tubes down pat. He does the pushing and I am the anchor. It works. It’s almost there. Fast work.
“Praxedis!” exclaims Gordo, as he comes up the line. “There’s a bit of a leak in the pipe!”

I spoke too soon. Alarm Bells!

Praxedis and I rush to the emergency spot, and find that there are two small holes in the pipe at about the 1,000 meter point. It’s moles! A certain mountain variety who have developed a taste for plastic pipe. It has all gone too smoothly until now and no project is ever without its formidable difficulties. However, seepage from the little gnawed holes is derisory. We apply some tape and voila!, it’s fixed—but the resident moles could present difficulties later on.

Back at base, two days into her intense tummy bug, Maria still alternates between chills and fever, not seeming to be getting better. The kids’ constant attention hasn’t had physical benefits and she is still feeling pretty wretched.

Don’t worry, I tell her, give it a couple of days, you will be fine.
“Fuck this shit, dude. I’m thinking I might cut out. I’m completely exhausted, and I can’t fucking work if I’m pissing out my ass every ten minutes.”

I reckon another factor is that she probably just doesn’t want to be a non-productive entity, a burden on the water project and the community. We have only a few more days of fairly straightforward digging work ahead of us here, so her presence won’t be that necessary. What’s more, there is plenty of preparation to be done, back in San Cristobal, for the next phase.
We have a group of five volunteers coming to participate in the final stage of the water project: constructing the distribution tank and distribution lines within the community. These newcomers need to be introduced to the project and prepped. Maria could well occupy her time with them, as well as do accounts and get supplies for the next stage. And then there is the international donor, solidarity, and NGO sector to follow up on. Seeing as the estimate for this water project is in the region of $6,000 for materials and transport alone, Maria needs to get on top of all that stuff, the “industry” side of solidarity business.

We call a meeting with Don Sisifo and the water responsables, and ask Adelita and another compañera from the Hortaliza to come along too. Maria wants to help the women and knows that things will only happen if the agreement is made at a group meeting. Other compañeros join the meeting—like the Galician fishermen look-alikes, for no other reason than because they want to. Add the gaggle of children and we now have a good twenty people in the schoolroom. Maria, visibly shaking with globs of sweat matting her brow, outlines the next stage of the work.

We draw up a plan for Maria’s absence and reflect on the work already done.
There is a moment of tension when Maria asks Adelita a question about the hortaliza, and Don Sisifo answers.
“I am wondering what the compañerathinks of this,” asserts Maria.
But Adelita only says quietly, “As Don Sisifo said…”
An uncomfortable silence.

Maria leaves in the middle of the night, dragging herself out of the schoolroom, and heads to the riverbank, where Don Sisifo waits to row her across to catch the only bus to town, which passes around 4 AM. A dingy, rust-bucket of a chicken bus picks up Maria for the journey back to San Cristobal. It’s remarkable that it can make it through the rough mountain path.

Praxedis and I are taking the reins. There is a ton of work to be done but we are confident that we can get it all done in a week. We need to finish the trench, lay the rest of the pipes, and prepare a concrete base for the distribution tank.

The days pass by, punctuated by digging, digging, and more digging. Like a chain gang, we take our positions in the trench each morning, mark out ten meters and begin our day’s labor. One grips the pick and its dirt-encrusted wooden stalk receives dirt-encrusted hands; like a hand in a glove they become one, body and tool merging. The first crunch as the metal thuds into the hard earth resounds throughout one’s entire body, and then the body resigns itself to a long day of heavy laboring, begrudgingly accepting its role. It is only later in the day, when the muscles are worn and the mind gets weary that the body starts refusing. But in between, when your body is dealing, your mind can rise above, thoughts flourishing. Sometimes one dwells on the immediate job at hand and the rocks and the stones, the method, sometimes one thinks of people and times, melancholy or nostalgic. Occasionally the mind soars, and digging becomes a transcendental joy. Those moments, however, are rare. Usually one is more preoccupied with blisters and mire.

Drained from toiling under the burning sun, Praxedis and I climb out of the ditch and begin the more leisurely task of casing out the location for the village’s distribution tank. We have chosen a spot on protected, high, flat ground. We need to completely level the area where the tank will sit. Sharing a single pick we work the earth and clear a patch for the tank, grading a spot seven meters squared. We stop for matz and a smoke and enjoy what feels like the first rest in days—and well deserved it is, too. Could it be the first break in eleven days? Campo life: it’s all physical.

But, soon enough, we’re back at it again. The site has to be perfectly level, because a 13,000 liter concrete water tank will be sitting on top of it. It is tedious work, done mostly on our hands and knees, taking approximations with the leveling tool. We attached the short level to a long pipe and that suffices. We mark out a circle, flatten it down, and level it again. Like 19th century work, but it gets done: appropriate technology and us covered in mud.

Then we take another long break and tramp off up the trench with another roll, the two-and-a-half inch size rolls are too heavy for one, so we carry it between us on a pole. The compasdigging have reached the two-thirds mark! That was quick! Are they digging deep enough? I would say yes, more or less. We can go back later and revise the shallow spots. This constant worry that the trench not deep enough is an albatross on the shoulders of us conscientious engineers.

By now, the compas are digging along the banks of the river—treacherous, rocky terrain filled with trees, roots blocking the trench’s trail. Despite constant hacking at the roots, the workers can only get down about thirty centimeters. The digging is haphazard, slow, and awkward, and there is the added problem of potential flooding here if the river breaks its banks, which would wash away the pipes. Praxedis and I wander up and down this section with a couple of heavy sledgehammers, smashing rocks that block the line. It is mind-numbing and brutal work, whacking at heavy boulders, the thumps shuddering the core of our beings. Can’t take too much of that without inducing a lobotomy, so off we go to the more leisurely activity of connecting lines of pipe. By the end of the day, we have connected three 100-meter rolls—that’s 1,300 meters done. There’s no more engineering work to oversee, and no other reason to not return to the trench, so like two condemned men we pick up a couple of sledgehammers, and join the men, knee deep in the ditch.
Lobotomy-inducing solidarity work.

Back at base, the children march around chanting with greater excitement, sensing the adults’ growing anticipation of the arriving water. The children’s young voices are shrill and enchanting: “Zapata vive, la lucha sigue,” “El pueblo unido, jamas sera vencido,” (15) etc.

Tonight, Praxedis cooks up some yummy, spicy-bean tacos in home-made tortillas—someday he will make someone a very happy spouse. Over sacred coffee, we talk of other places: of Brazil, of Greece, of Praxedis’s travels, of my travels, of other worlds, of the globe, our love of the sea, of the road, of moving, of exploring, the usual.

How did Praxedis arrive here, today, digging ditches in Planet Lacandon?
Destiny or default, he is not sure, but he grew up a rebel in Mexico City. From a tender age, Praxedis was involved in the radical milieu that has a long and profound history of flourishing in the great and monstrous metropolis. Anarchism attracted him for its spirit of emancipation and practical application, and he, like a few other of his fellow city activist-kind, heard the Zapatista clarion call and came down to join in. As an urban worker whose skills were not so necessary in the rural makeup of the battlefront, finding the right role was difficult for him. He put his hand to jungle life for a while, before the Zapatista command stepped in and requested that he and his ilk of urban radicals employ their talents in other fields. “We have plenty of local volunteers here, go foment revolution in other places,” they ordered. So he went back to Mexico City, tried for a while to ‘foment revolution,’ but felt crushed by the Sisyphean task in such a giant urban space. He drove a taxi, traveled a bit, read theory and philosophy, and then realized he yearned for the Zapatista environment. And so he returned, getting involved in water projects.
Was it the right thing to do?
“For me, yeah. I wasn’t getting anything done in Mexico City. The city was sucking my soul dry.”
It is true, he does thrive in the rural setting.
So are you here for the long term then?
“Yeah. I’m only going back to Mexico City at the head of a long rebel column taking over the Capital!”
But Praxedis, I intervene—playing the devil's advocate—first of all, the Zapatistas are not anarchist, and secondly, I very much doubt that taking over Mexico City in a long rebel column is part of the program.
“Yeah,” he laughs. “I’m projecting.”
“So what are you doing here with this ‘armed reformist outfit?” I pose, using a term hard-left detractors often ply.
“Look, we know the Zapatistas, in the here and now, are not some revolutionary ideal. Yeah we know the EZLN it is a top-down, authoritarian, paternalistic organization, and we are fully aware that the majority of the base is devoutly religious, superstitious, nationalistic and socially conservative.”

I’m on my way out the door to start packing my backpack.
“But, he continues, what we do have is a radical anti-state and anti-capitalist movement, and they are organized and resisting. There is nothing like them in the whole of Mexico, or indeed anywhere. And they are in movement, moving towards a better future. Reality and politics are in flux, and the Zapatistas are still in the becoming stage. They are addressing their internal problems like authoritarianism and patriarchy, and they are confronting the external ones, like taking a clear anti-capitalist line. The Zapatistas are going the right direction; they are vibrant and I’m here to push it a little more in an anarchistic direction if I can. But I don’t mean just me—me as a part of a collective effort: all the other caxlan compañeros here. We are all in this together.”

OK, unpack the bags, the revolution is still on course.
“So what do you think is the basis of the relationship between anarchism and Zapatismo? Why are all the anarchists so excited about the Zapatistas?” I ask.

“Anarchists and Zapatistas are not one and the same,” continues Praxedis. “We are fellow travelers, at best. Anarchists are attracted to the organizational model of the Zapatistas: community-based participatory democracy and the demand for autonomy. We admire their militant resistance to neo-liberalism. We share their anti-capitalist stance. But our support for the Zapatistas is not unconditional. We are not blind followers of Marcos and the EZLN leadership. We are here in solidarity with the base and recognize that the EZLN are compañeros in struggle. This is where Mexico’s at, at this moment in time—the coal-face of the struggle—and we anarchists are here to lend our support and solidarity. And despite not having any real role in the decision-making process, we try to give voice to a more emancipatory line.”

This pretty much reflects how I see my presence here too. I muse on that fact that, despite our primary aim in Roberto Arenas being to build a bridge of solidarity with the indigenous Zapatista compañeros and compañeras, inevitability we end up building really solid bridges of solidarity with each other, the caxlan part of the solidarity equation. So it is with me and Praxedis—we are forging a strong comradeship that stretches far beyond this very water project. Although, he hails from Mexico City, and I from Dublin, we actually share, not just an ideological affinity to anarchist thought, but also a somewhat similar political background. And so perhaps it is that that one of the by-products of the Zapatista insurrection is to bring like-minded people together, beyond national frontiers.

8. Heart of the Community

Idle curiosity or else a sense of foreboding brings me out in the late afternoon to check the water flow from the pipes. This conscientious act—on a Saturday to boot!—is rewarded by the discovery of the worst possible plumbing news: the flow is halved! The pipes are way too light when I pick them up. Fuck!—a leak, a hole or an air-block! A faulty connection, something fucked up, and at moments like this one’s mind tends to run riot: Is the water system completely ruined? Is there some fundamental flaw and it has all been a terrible waste of time? Rushing back to the community center I bump into Gordo.
“Are you OK?” he asks. “You seem in a hurry.”
“There’s a problem with the flow in the pipes, but I’m sure it will be fine. I’m going to get Praxedis and sort it out.”
“Maybe just turn the globe valve open to the full,” suggests Gordo.
“Yeah,” I say, “that could be it.” I need to relax. He is probably right. It is all fine, under control.

I grab Praxedis, swinging gently in his hammock, relishing the prison writings of Flores Magón.
“Fuck it, man. The water flow is halved. We have a crisis! Come on!”
Praxedis jumps up with his usual military discipline and ideological zeal.
“Lets go!” he says and jogs out the door.

We rush along the line apprehensively. The pipe is half empty the whole way. Fuck. Now we are doomed, and things have been going so well. What could it be? We slowly inspect each segment of pipe and each connection. The pipe is light and therefore almost empty, the whole length of the line. No signs of leaks or holes anywhere, so the problem must be up at the spring. All sorts of fears cross our minds. What if we worked out the head wrong, and there are air-bubbles in the system that will make it permanently unworkable? We inspect the spring box carefully: the tap looks fine. We uncover the mesh wire protecting the entrance. Fuck! There’s a big chunk if wood jammed in the mouth of the entrance pipe! How did that get through all our various defense walls and layers of mesh, wire, and net? Bizarre. Would a kid have shoved it there to fuck it up as a joke? No, that can’t be it. Would somebody have tried to sabotage the system? No, that’s inconceivable too. Somehow this chunk of wood got through a hole in the defense walls and wire netting and got sucked into the tube entrance. Quite bizarre.

With a great sense of relief, we remove the despised object. The water is pulled in by the gravity of the half empty pipe, and after a bit of farting and gulping, it soon goes full speed into the system. With a spring in our stride, smiling widely, we jaunt back into the community. At the end of the line, open, lying on the side of the ongoing trench, the water is pumping out at full pressure: a litter every four seconds. It’s mended! If there was a bar in this village, we would go celebrate with a few triumphant beers. Instead we can puff heavily on some filter less Alas cigarettes and tell the story of the chunk of wood again and again to anyone who will listen.

Praxedis plays basketball with the youth in the late afternoon. I write in my journal. The sunset is deep red and resonant. People retire to their darkening huts, lighting candles. The animals of the day—hens and dogs and horses—are replaced by the sounds of the animals of the night—crickets, frogs, cats, the occasional monkey in the distance. The night sky envelopes us, black and brooding; no moon tonight.

Back at work, laying the pipe to the village. We are on the cusp of the distribution tank location; we are almost there and everyone’s excited. We connect the last three and a half pipes (350 meters) ignoring the trench, and just running it along the ground. The trench is bogged down for a hundred metres with knee-deep swampy sludge because of the near-impossible digging conditions—every shovel full extracted fills with slush immediately. In a big budget operation we would build a bridge over this swamp for the pipes, but here we have to make do with the cheapest option. The men decide to do the stretch collectively, battling through it foot by foot, together.

“With twenty-three men we will do it in a few hours!” says a smiling Don Sisifo, as if relishing the task. Damn, he would have made a great British officer during WWI. Over the trenches, chaps!

These men like to work. They bounce each other’s energy off one another and work as an enthusiastic team. They are buzzing, and their comradery is tangible. A bunch of men without myriad confusions, hang-ups, bravado or rivalries between them. Strange. I don’t know what it is exactly that is so refreshing to be around, but I do know that this whole project is a big deal for the community. The water system will mean much more than just the women and children not having to carry water for a kilometer on their heads over a slippery treacherous mud track, or an improved supply of water all around—it represents the consolidation of this rebel community. A concrete and pipe representation of all that rebel autonomy means. This is significant. These people have never had piped water in their lives, never had the simple pleasure of turning on a tap in one’s own home and have water gushing out.

Praxedis and I get stuck-in with the picks—that fine, capable tool—digging into the moist earth, hacking chucks out and throwing them to the side of the emerging ditch. I like the weight of the pick in my hands. It feels like an extension of my body, comfortable, exquisite, and powerful, even if it is not. (We should have a fucking JCB backhoe here digging the ditch. Now that’s power!) The earth is unusually soft. It feels rich to dig into, even though it is quite a violent act, tearing at the earth surface.. This earth receives our tools generously, like a caress of the surface. Not all violence is destructive. Although, as I work it, it feels like this pick is doing me more damage than I do to the earth.

The long dig is almost complete. The last hundred meters of pipe is left out of the trench, bypassing the work in progress temporarily. It carries the water all the way to the community. Piped to the site of the tank, at the highest point in the community, the flow of water is good. Praxedis and I pull on our engineering caps again and hold one-liter water bottles under the flow to time how long it takes to fill: over one liter every four seconds. That means there is a sufficient supply for everyone. It’s that simple.

It is all smiles and pride as the water arrives in the heart of the community. Women come out to fill their buckets. A young compañera dressed in de-rigeur colorful dress with shiny plastic adornments and stuff in her hair approaches cautiously and eyes the gushing pipe lying in the grass.
“Can I?” she asks, timidly. Of course! She fills her bucket, and sips the water in the palm of her hand with apprehension. She flashes us a big smile,
“It’s good!”
And so she is saved the hike to the river. Next, some emboldened children wander up and begin washing their hands and faces with the water. Yes, it’s for real: water is arriving! There’s a sense of excitement building.

Vicente presents us with a large pumpkin from his garden, a gift of thanks.
“It really means a lot to us,” he says. “We are a young community. We can count on having a church, a basketball court, a canoe, and now water.”
We accept his gratitude with suitable humbleness.
“Can you help us with building a hammock bridge across the river?” he asks.
“We have a lot of work to finish the water system,” says Praxedis. “It’s only a little over half done! We have a tank to build, and a distribution system. One thing at a time, compa!”
The water system represents stability and permanence for the community. It says, “We are here to stay!” in plastic pipe and concrete, on this occupied rebel territory. We are not squatters; this land is ours!
Later will come the next steps—a concrete basketball court, a cinder-block church, maybe—if they can score a transformer, a lot of cable and a few tall wooden posts—some electricity pirated from the lines a few kilometres away. This is oil-rich Mexico in the twenty-first century, a country of mega-businesses controlled by a cabal of billionaires, and there is almost no electrification in this part of the vast jungle zone. It is a fucking disgrace.

A new day, we return to the construction site of the capitation tank. Having already levelled the site, we measure out a three meter circle with string and a stick, and mark it in the ground. Then we dig a shallow trench outside the circle, filling it with rocks. This will serve as an outside foundation for the tank.

The compa’s join in mixing cement. It is something they are all good at, having at some time or another worked on construction sites outside of the community as laborers. We are ready to lay the concrete foundation for the tank base, but we need a sizeable quantity of gravel and sand. To lay a solid three meter circular floor with a five-inch-thick base, firm enough to support the 13,000 litter cement tank, we need a lot of sand and gravel. Don Sisifo brings us up the hill to an abundant source of fine sand, and another pit filled with stonier sand, which he hopes could be used as gravel.
“This soil is way too sandy,” says Praxedis, the gravel expert, “we need well-formed gravel.”

So off we go, deeper into the hills, on a treasure hunt. We cut our way through the woods with machetes. There is better gravel to be found here but it’s still sandy and brittle. We all spread out and search around the hillsides and ravines. As time passes, the variety of soil and earth we encounter in our search is astonishing—in one or another mountain or hill there has been just about every variety of soil, sand, and gravel under the sun. From a distance, it just looks like a big fucking contiguous mountain, and yet, this mesmerizing variety I had never even conceived of surrounds us.

Eventually, Praxedis comes across a little ditch with the right kind of gravel. It’s not perfect, but adequate for the job at hand. And better to return with something to keep the show on the road. It is a good two kilometers from the construction site, though. Portering time again!

Now these madmen want to carry forty kilos each of gravel, mecopal style, down the steep, slippery hills to the community. Everyone fills their sack and slings it over their shoulders. I can hardly lift the fucking sack off the ground. Two compashoist it on my back, and we set off together down the treacherous, muddy path in a long single line, like a mule train. Each and every man carries a full bag, young and old alike, from the fifteen-year-old boy Juan to the somewhat-elderly Don Job, and Praxedis and I too, all doubled over with this weight on our shoulders and back, held by a rope around our foreheads. It takes a lifetime to learn how to do this properly, this portering extravaganza, and I, for one, am struggling.

So with the gravel delivered, we begin the cement work to lay a floor for the distribution tank. Teams are set up for sifting the sand, then mixing the gravel and cement powder. Finally, the whole mixture is shoveled into a mound and the water is poured slowly into a little lake in the center. It’s left to permeate the mix for a few minutes and then a group of men begin to shovel it all without letting the water escape from the sides. It is hard, labor-intensive work, and my body aches even though we take turns with our limited number of shovels. Yearn for a cement mixer, one of the construction industry’s greatest inventions!

A few sweltering and chaotic hours later, a large, thick concrete floor, capable of supporting the tremendous weight of the distribution tank, is in place. We did, however, over-extend the floor a little, using two extra bags of precious cement that took such work to get here. We should be more economic!

And then there is the never-ending tale of gravel and its woes. We made an error the day before up at the gravel pit, calculating that we’d need 800 shovelfuls of gravel for the whole tank and base. We got our calculations wrong—we only need 400. All day, compañeros have been trekking up the mountain and returning with sacks of gravel on their backs. We already have about 200 shovelfuls too much and still it keeps coming. Some bright spark has even thought to bring a horse up and, at this very moment, he’s arrived back from the gravel pit. The beast has a double load tied around his saddle.
“Fuck!” say Praxedis and I, jointly. “Please no more! That is more than plenty…”

We are a little embarrassed, trying to think of something, anything to do with the extra 200 spades-full of gravel—a growing mound. We almost drop with fright as yet another couple of horses arrive laden down with tons of gravel.
“We shall use it for something,” says Alfredo. “But it has to keep coming.”
Each compañero has an allotted quota, and has to deliver it whether it is necessary or not.
“Must comply to the quotas,” insists Don Sisifo. And then he himself scoots off up the mountain with his Rocinante(16) to collect his remaining quota. Oh dear, oh dear, the occasional tyranny of collectivization. This ode to useless labor and the myth of Sisyphus comes to mind.

Myths are made for the imagination to breath life into them. I’ve always considered the myth of Sisyphus a good analogy for revolutionary struggle, especially anarchism—endless struggle—but here in the jungle and the mountains of the Lacandon, I am getting a whole new understanding of the notion.

The usual symbolic figure associated with Zapatistas is their namesake, Mexican Revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata. Sometimes the image of Che Guevera is evoked. And for sure they are both potent symbols for the image of the Zapatistas, or more specifically, the EZLN. But at the risk of introducing another western figure into a distinctly non-western cultural environment, I would draw on the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus to represent the kind of folks, like Don Sisifo, who make up the Zapatista base. It is not a heroic representation in the traditional sense, but more saliently, a symbolic figure who represents unremitting hard work or boundless endeavor.

Sisyphus was the mortal who challenged the pantheon of Greek Gods and for his insolence is condemned to roll a huge boulder up a hill throughout eternity. Each time he reaches the top of the hill, the boulder rolls down again to the bottom. His predicament is usually understood as a metaphor for humanity’s futile and ceaseless toil, condemned, at least according to the mythology, to an infinity of punishment and frustration. And so we have the indigenous Zapatista Don Sisifo (not his real name) rolling his rock up the mountain, a life of toil without remittance, his own struggle for survival and for that of his family and community, a Sisyphean task. What sustains him and his ilk?

Albert Camus’s 1942 essay, “The Myth of Sisyphus,” is helpful here for understanding this dilemma. In it, Camus rejects the standard interpretation of Sisyphus as a tragic victim of a terrible punishment meted out by unforgiving gods. Instead, he imagines Sisyphus as personifying the absurdity of human life in general, in an existential sense. More significantly, Camus’ Sisyphus is a hero, though an absurd one.

He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. That is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth.

Camus argues that what sustains Sisyphus is the certainty of his fate; having rebelled, he accepts his absurd condition, and the source of his contentment is the notion that “there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.”(17) Camus presents Sisyphus as a proletarian of the gods, one who defies his terrible fate by being conscious and aware of what he is doing and of the need to continue on.

And that is how I envisage this flesh and blood Don Sisifo before my eyes—not as a revolutionary hero like Emiliano Zapata or an epic guerrilla legend like Che Guevara, but a humble man, a conscientious worker, a rebel, and—in a Camus sense—a proletarian of the gods.

Amongst a chaotic symphony of slapping cement, the last of the concrete work is done by five madmen. We just want to make sure the floor is level and fortify the foundations. What if there is an earthquake and the whole thing just collapses? Using strings that don’t measure up we attempt to make concrete floor. Is it level? It has to be level, the whole 13,000 litter tank stands on it! I’m not convinced. By afternoon we have a floor, and a ton of cement that we will leave for a week to harden sufficiently to begin work on it. Over goes the tarpaulin to protect it from rain and shine.

Here we are, 1,968 meters from the fresh water spring, and before us we have a PVC pipe spouting clean water at a rate of.4 liters per second. We have a five-inch solid concrete base with a good foundation and we are all set. These three weeks have been very productive. After our work is finished, the people’s lives will be changed immensely, and lives will be saved, to boot.

9. Building Bridges of Solidarity
Saturday night in Roberto Arenas. The immense, starry sky over the valley and the natural silence is overwhelming. In the distance, we can make out various houses illumined by flickering candle light. We are warm in the bosom of the valley by the river, and it would be perfectly tranquil except our candlelight is attracting a bad crowd, and we are being devoured by swarms of jackistas and mosquitoes.
A voice in the darkness calls out to Praxedis.
“Si?”
“May we enter?” requests a voice in the blackness.
Three compañeros enter shyly and we invite them to sit around the candlelight. An awkward silence ensues.
Gordo, the outgoing one of the group, begins:
“We have come to talk to you.”
“OK,” says Praxedis and another two minutes of silence passes.
In a decisive act of social bonding, I crack out a packet of cigarettes and offer them around. The three compañeros accept them gratefully. It soon becomes clear that the other two are overcome with intense shyness and speak no Spanish. They whisper to Gordo for a few minutes in Tzeltal, and then point at us.
“You are the first caxlanes to ever visit our community,” says Gordo. “The compañeros are very pleased you came. They wanted to come to welcome you.”
The two silent ones smile and nod their heads in unison. It’s very touching.
We smile back and say “jocolawal”—thank you, in Tseltal.
“Do you come from the United States?” Gordo asks of me.
“No,” I say, “ Ireland.”
Gordo looks confused.
“Europe,” I offer.
He nods, and explains to the others. They look disappointed.
“The compañeros thought you came from the United States.”
“I’m sorry, no.”
And what country does your compañero come from?”
Now this is the thing. Praxedis may be a bit of a quiet fellow, but he is most definitely Mexican and speaks with a very pronounced Mexico City accent. Why is the compañero asking me, the non-Spanish speaker about Praxedis?! I am taken aback.
“He is from Mexico! A chilango!”(18) Gordo turns quite excitedly to his companions and reveals to them this gem of information! They discuss this at length and then turn to Praxedis, somewhat uncertain.
“You are Mexican?! We thought you were from another country!”
“Well, DF does seem like another country from here, it’s true,” says Praxedis, and everybody laughs.
“Why did you think he is from another country?” I ask.
“Well, he is not like the other mestizos we have seen.”
True enough, the small provincial town of Ocosingo—probably the extent of these campesinos travels— would not have many inhabitants like Praxedis, with his tattoos, punky-look and pronounced chilango accent.

And so the conversation begins and we end up talking deep into the night, with Gordo acting as informal moderator between the rest of us.
The two quiet ones are introduced—they are brothers, Ricardo and Enrique, and it must be noted that these two look completely different from everyone else here in the community. For a start they have beards, while most of the other men, typical for indigenous, have no facial hair. They are several inches taller than everyone else and resemble Galician fishermen, perhaps from a few centuries ago. Neither has a word of Spanish, but they emanate a natural friendliness and warmth. We share cigarettes and talk—we in Spanish, they in Tseltal. Although we don’t understand much, it’s enough to laugh and smile while enjoying the hushed darkness.

After discussing the price of our boots and how much plane tickets cost from Ireland, the talk turns to the United States, the work situation up north, and how to get there. They know people who have tried to migrate without papers, without success, but they all entertain ideas of going there anyhow, somehow.

“What of the Zapatista struggle to stay and fight for a better world here?” asks Praxedis. The three campesinos speak in Tseltal among themselves for what seems a long time.
Eventually Gordo turns to us and says, “We can do both. Work up north, and fight down here. But there is no money here, so we must seek work up there.”
He goes on to describe how $3 a day is the best they can hope for working locally in Chiapas as hired farm-workers. In the United States, he says—his face lighting up—compañeros can make $10 an hour, as much as a $100 a day!

“Sure,” he explains, “we get by working on our milpas here, growing corn to feed our families and we can survive. But… (Gordo points at my black punk-rock boots) how can we afford anything more if we have no money?”

The pressure on youths and young men and women to make the dangerous and uncertain trip north is greater as the government’s neo-liberal policies undermine the traditional peasant economy. Imports of mass-produced corn from the US, undermines the local market for this basic good, and campesinos are literally forced off the land because they are priced out. Some farmers change their focus away from corn and plant cash crops like coffee or start palm-oil plantations for biofuel, but with the perennial shortage of good land, a sizeable portion of the youth are forced to migrate. The Zapatistas counteract this pattern by imploring campesinos to stay and fight, to take over more land and to work together collectively to produce more efficiently through farmers’ cooperatives.

“No hay tak'in – there's no money here,” laments Gordo. “We can't afford to buy anything.”
To labor the point he reaches over and picks up an old walkman I have by my side. It is a real piece of shit I picked up back home after someone threw it away.
“How does this work?” he asks.
After spending a while in the indigenous communities in the Lacandon region, one begins to see patterns emerge. Like how sometimes our presence—as caxlanes—represents a disruptive influence in these rural communities. Even though we come with good intentions, invited to be here and are participating in valuable projects requested by the people themselves, our presence still has a powerful impact. Compañeros up and down the canyons or in the jungle always ask: How come you can travel the world, have all this electrical equipment, fancy clothes and boots, expensive sleeping bags, etc., when we, as campesinos, have none of this?

“Do you work harder than us?” Gordo asks rhetorically.
No, of course we don’t.
Praxedis tries to explain it in terms of capitalist inequalities, but I can see that the language he uses is going over Gordo’s head. He gets neo-liberalism, exploitation, and class war, but looks confused when Praxedis tries to explain surplus value and means of production—I must confess to being a bit lost myself.
Gordo asks him to elaborate.
Praxedis likes to make an effort at popular education with the compas. Political theory is his forte, and I have seen some compañeros in other communities really take to Praxedis’s political lessons. And sometimes, like tonight, they bomb. He sees it as part of his duty as an anarchist to share his political theory with the Zapatista cadre. How else, he insists, will they ever hear these important ideas?

Praxedis comes from Mexico City and his political outlook comes from the radical urban milieu there. The anarchist movement in Mexico City is (relatively) sizeable and broad enough to have several competing tendencies and factions who seem to be eternally at loggerheads. Praxedis’s group have made it a priority to be actively involved in autonomous and popular movements as their praxis for building an anarchist platform. For them political solidarity is inserting oneself as an anarchist in the movement with the aim of pushing it further, while sharing the common goal of the specific campaign—broadly considered the especifismo tendency. Praxedis’s outlook is premised in the idea that people who have different political ideas can work together, and paradoxically, unity is discovered in diversity. Most of all, this kind of anarchist practice prioritizes movement building over political correctness and eschews promoting a “correct line” like other, more fundamentalist, practitioners on the left.
Proselytizing in the indigenous communities is problematic: while the ideology and the aspirations of an anarchist may carry many similarities with the struggle of the Zapatistas, it is the cultural divide between the city and the countryside that seems a wider chasm to cross. The life experiences of the indigenous peasant and the urban mestizo are worlds apart.

In an attempt to bridge the gap in understanding, in theory and practice, I relate the long history of uprising and armed struggle against occupation and “bad government” in my country, Ireland—and this comes as quite a surprise to Gordo.
"There is an armed struggle against bad government in your country?" he repeats as if to make sure he heard right, and when he relays this back to the others, they are clearly perturbed.
"We thought only poor people like us had to fight, not rich gringo caxlanes like you…"
Interactions like this don’t bring us any closer, they just consolidate the idea that there is such a huge distance to cross in international solidarity. It begins to resemble a never-ending task that cannot ever be realized, a Sisyphean endeavor.

Outsiders are often drawn to the Zapatistas through the eloquent pen of Sub-comandante Marcos and recognize their own struggles his exquisite words. These communiqués swirled around the globe in the mid-1990s, as internet-savvy supporters employed new technologies with great effectiveness to circulate the rebel texts. The reality on the ground was of course far different. Many European and US radicals came to Chiapas with great expectations only to be disappointed by the authoritarian, patriarchal, and conservative movement they encountered at the base. For those activists, the gap between the image of the Zapatista struggle created by Marcos’s words and the actuality in the communities was a bridge in itself to cross.

In this piece, I am attempting to portray the Zapatistas as they are, at the grassroots, beyond the mythologizing of Marcos and the public face of the rebellion. As it did for many others, the content of the myriad communiqués and letters resonated powerfully in the political work I was participating in Europe. Zapatista discourse on autonomy, diversity, resistance to power, and neo-liberalism reflected a political reality confronted at the center of the world systems as well as the peripheries. However, it was not my political background in autonomous and anarchist circles in Europe that helped me relate to the situation within the Zapatista communities. What was far more helpful in enabling me to understand the reality in Chiapas was experiences being active with other campesino struggles in other parts of Latin America, time spent with revolutionary groups in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Colombia. In these scenarios, ideology or theory takes a backseat to the daily exigencies of the struggle for basic survival.

Surely no writing on the Zapatistas is complete without quoting at least one poetic epistle from Subcomandante Marcos! I try to avoid using Marcos’s rose-tinted prose to illuminate the Zapatista reality, but this one passage from a communiqué attributed to the Clandestine Committee, but clearly written by Marcos, expresses the perplexing and sometimes contradictory nature of encountering Zapatismo at its base. This sentiment really resonates, I discover, having dug ditches for years with the Zapatistas.
“Zapatismo is not a new political ideology or a rehash of old ideologies. Zapatismo is nothing. It doesn’t exist. It only serves as a bridge, to cross from one side to the other. So everyone fits within Zapatismo, everyone who wants to cross from one side to the other. Everyone has his or her own side and other side. There are no universal recipes, lines, strategies, tactics, laws, rules, or slogans. There is only a desire: to build a better world, that is, a new world.”(19)

Notes
1. The tseltal are an ethnic indigenous group of the Maya family numbering some 400,000 located mainly in the east-central of Chiapas. The language spoken by the people is also called tseltal .
2. Uses and customs. A phrase meaning the traditions of the indigenous communities.
3. Don is like a polite form of Mr. It denotes a certain authority and bequests respect.
4. All names of Zapatista’s have been changed to protect the identity of the individuals.
5. All names and identities of water technicians have been changed as a measure of protection.
6. Originally the Lacandon rainforest covered an area of about 19,000 square kilometer. This is about the size of the Basque Country, or Chechnya. A half century of colonization and industry reduced the forest mass by two thirds.
7.A milpa is a corn field plot, where the campesino grows the three basics, corn, beans and pumpkin.
8. Mecopal – a traditional way of carry loads supported on ones back with a rope supporting from the bottom of the sack or water jug that is wrapped around the forehead.
9.A kind of voracious jungle midge that descends in swarms and feeds unrelentingly on humans.
10. Caxlan is a catch-all phrase in tseltal and tsotsil that refers to outsiders, whether they be from other parts of Chiapas, from other parts of Mexico or foreigners. Ladinos, or non-indigenous. The word is sometimes spelt kaxlan, or even jkaxlan.
11. tu is used informally between family and friends. Usted is the formal form of tu and is used to address figures of authority. Furthermore, if someone addresses you as ‘usted’ and you respond in ‘tu’ it can be perceived as patronizing.
12. Jason was an ancient Greek mythological hero, famous as the leader of the Argonauts who wandered the oceans in their quest for a gold-haired - winged ram - the mythical golden fleece.
13.Traven. B. 1966. The Bridge in the Jungle. New York: Alfred A Knopf p. 23.
14. slung over the shoulder in a woven blanket.
15. “Zapata lives, the struggle continues. The people united will never be defeated.” Two popular chants at any Zapatista demonstration.
16. Rocinante is the name of Don Quixote's skinny but hardy horse, in the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.
17. Camus, Albert. 1942. The Myth of Sisyphus And Other Essays. New York: Vantage International. p. 34.
18. Native of Mexico City.
19.Cited from Luis Hernandez Navarro, Zapatismo Today, Five Views From the Bridge. Americas Program, Interhemispheric, Resource Centre (IRC) January 2004.

Ramor Ryan is based in Dublin, Ireland. Over the past dozen or so years, he has traveled extensively throughout Latin America and has worked on a dozen water projects in different regions of the autonomous municipalities of Chiapas. His book Clandestines: The Pirate Journals of an Irish Exile, for which he received an IAS grant in 2002, was published by AK Press. Ramor received a second grant to support the writing of this project in the summer of 2005. This essay will appear as a chapter in a book, Zapatista Spring, by Ramor published by AK Press in April, 2011.

Secret Survivors

2011-01-27T16:15:00.009-05:00

Ping Chong & Company's SECRET SURVIVORS

Saturday, March 12 at El Museo del Barrio

UPDATE Feb 12: A month out and the 600 seats are already booked up, as well as the 30 person waiting list. If you really want to catch the performance it'd be worth it to call El Museo and see what they say or just come early day of the show -> I bet you'll get in... Oh yeah, and the Egyptian people forced Mubarak to step down - HA!

Amita began gathering us well over a year ago. A friend, an acquaintance or a friend of a friend who she may have heard a stray word about. All of us survivors of child sexual abuse.

Walking through the doors for our first weekend of storytelling, I was relieved to see two old friends, Gabby Callender and LL Gimeno, and a friendly new face, Di Sands, were the other collaborators who'd responded to Amita's invitation. Working with Sara Zatz and the rest of the team at Ping Chong & Company, an artist-run, experimental theatre company that has been innovating for over 35 years from its home in lower Manhattan, we created Secret Survivors. Our five stories woven into a recent history of resilient survivorship...

Come see us perform Secret Survivors in El Museo del Barrio's historic and beautiful 600-seat theatre on the evening of Saturday, March 12. The show is free, just RSVP -> full details here. Invite anyone who you feel might benefit from the experience and conversations that will follow.

As I've detailed elsewhere, this work is one way I've aligned my life with the zapatista struggle.

Shout outs to the zapatistas as they begin their 18th year above ground, building a new world amidst the ongoing war against them; most recently in the form of false allegations linking them to a high-profile kidnapping. And following a prolonged silence, Moisés and Marcos have just issued a communique honoring the Bishop Samuel Ruiz, who passed away on Monday, and his community of liberation theologists.

And, of course, shout outs to rebel North Africa in this bright and uncertain hour. Our brother Ahmad Shokr is reporting direct from Cairo.

If we in some way identify with the zapatistas, then we must ask ourselves what it truly means for us, and for the communities of which we are a part, to be rebellious.

Does Evo Morales 'Lead by Obeying'?

2010-12-31T00:17:00.013-05:00

Former homies Evo Morales (center) and Oscar Olivera (right) in a photo that might be used to spark conversation in our next Study-into-Action group of the Challenging Male Supremacy Project

UPDATE Dec 31: One hour before the new year, Evo is forced by popular mobilization to repeal the massive fuel price hikes his administration imposed on Bolivia less than a week earlier... this is the first uprising from below against one of Latin America's "pink tide" governments.

Even some of their close allies and supporters were confused when the Zapatistas declined Evo Morales' invitation to attend his presidential inauguration in Bolivia at the dawn of 2006. Morales nevertheless concluded his acceptance speech with the following words: “I will keep my promise, as Subcomandante Marcos says, ‘to lead by obeying’. I will lead Bolivia obeying the Bolivian people.” In an interview later that year, Subcomandante Marcos explained their position: "… to go off to the inauguration of Evo Morales would...say that, yes, it is possible to change things from above. And later, we said that the [Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN)] doesn’t look toward...the Bolivia of above, but, rather, the Bolivia from below. And these are the values that are taken into account: those of the popular movement that caused Bolivia to crash and opened the possibility that the government of Evo could decide for one side or the other." The open letter below, released just yesterday by prominent ex-labor leader and social activist Oscar Olivera and others, suggests the Zapatistas may have made the right choice when they stayed in Mexico in January of 2006 to drive forward the Other Campaign rather than travel to Bolivia to watch Evo Morales ascend to the presidency.

Happy New Years Zapagringo Readers! Before we get to the open letter... Abahlali baseMjondolo (the South African Shackdweller's Movement) mentions S'bu Zikode's meeting with Raúl Zibechi here in NYC in a recent communique. That sure feels good to see! Here's video from one of Zikode's presentations and here's audio of one of Zibechi's. And, lastly, here's a list of the 10 Most Hopeful Stories of 2010, which begins with a reference to the Peoples' Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth hosted in Bolivia by the Morales government earlier this year ;-)

Open Letter to Evo Morales and Álvaro García Against the Gasolinazo and for the Self Governance of Our People
The People Come First, not Numbers nor Statistics

By Oscar Olivera Foronda, Marcelo Rojas, Abraham Grandydier, Aniceto Hinojosa Vásquez and Carlos Oropeza
Republished from The Narco News Bulletin

Cochabamba (La Llajta), Bolivia
December 30, 2010

Sirs;
Evo Morales Ayma and
Alvaro García Linera
La Paz.-

We speak to you through this open letter although it probably won't be read because you don't hear of it or because it doesn't interest you. However, although you may ignore it, although it may not exist, we want to tell you how we, like many of our people, feel today. We tell you, Sirs, because years ago you ceased being our brothers and compañeros, you distanced yourselves from the people, and thus you don't know what happens down here, below. Your defects - and not your virtues - that we know have multiplied ten times in a worrisome, indignant and sad manner.

Oscar Olivera (wearing baseball cap, interviewed by reporters) with Evo Morales (in the green shirt, to the right of Oscar) during the 2000 "Water War" in Cochabamba.

We still remember when we marched, together with you, Evo, for our people, when we campaigned to get Alvaro out of prison; when the ancient textile workers' building in Cochabamba became our headquarters to conspire against the bad governments that today look a lot like yours: BAD GOVERNMENT.

You quickly forgot that we sent you into the government not to administrate, but, rather, to transform and change the lives of the people. Today we see all of you transformed and the lives of the people have changed, but badly so, from bad to worse.

Since that December 22 of 2005, when you cried, Evo and Alvaro, you have only busied yourselves making traditional and privileged politics, subordinating and coopting social and union leaders, military and police officials, with money, with positions, disqualifying and stigmatizing everything that has criticized you, everything we said we wanted to do away with. Some of us had the luxury to reject your offers and you converted us into your enemies or simply behaved as if we did not exist. We asked you: Change the economy, worry about the people more than your political enemies, create jobs, industry, work, build solidarity, brotherhood and generosity.

Where is your "obedience leads" slogan that was invented by the Zapatistas? Did the people send you there to pact with the right in the Constituent Assembly? Did the people send you there to fill your cabinet with neoliberals, opportunists, incompetents and advisors for international organizations that we never saw in the struggles of the people, in the streets, the highways, the communities, the hunger strikes and factories? Where were most of the members of your cabinet in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005? Did the people send you there to invite your mayors, governors, "beauty pageant contestants," and neoliberal technicians into the government? Who decides in this government? The people? Or the llunk'us (a Quecha indigenous word for lackeys and adulators) that surround you in order to not lose the privileges that gives them power?

Álvaro García Linera (vice president of Bolivia) in a 2002 press conference with Oscar Olivera and Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar, when Olivera joined the hunger strike to demand that the Bolivian government withdraw charges against them.

Who continues controlling the economy of our country? The indigenous and "social movements"? Or the multinational oil and mining companies and large bankers who today have made more money than during any previous government to yours, those which you affectionately call "partners"? They are partners in the conditions of anguish and poor living to which we have been subjected during these last five years. Where are the billions of dollars in fiscal reserves that you constantly tell us are there?

What about the nationalizations that have been a trick against the population, indemnifying the multinational looters with the people's money? These businesses are being administrated by the old neoliberal and corrupt bureaucracy.

Where is the industrialization of gas in the country? Where is the new economy based on respect for Mother Earth and the balance and harmonious relation with Pachamama that you always proclaim? Haven't you delivered thousands of acres to the multinational oil and mining companies so they can keep exploiting Mother Earth? Have you given the New Political Constitution of the State to the plantation owners of the Eastern region?

The economic model continues being extractionary, neoliberal, capitalist, all of it contrary to your speeches.

Was it the people who sent you to buy a private airplane for $40 million when millions of "your people" do not have housing nor basic services? Did the people send you to tolerate narcotrafficking like never before and that, sooner or later, will turn our city into a Ciudad Juárez or a Medellín? Maybe the same coca leaf that you promoted so that you could be president will be the same leaf that takes that privilege away from you.

Do you know what it's like to have to wait on line overnight to sign your sons and daughters into school or to receive inadequate medical attention in the public hospitals? The people don't have private and privileged insurance for the clinics of the rich.

Felipe Quispe, Evo Morales and Oscar Olivera, in 2003, when they joined forces as the popular "chiefs of staff" in opposition to the government of Gonzalo "Goni" Sánchez de Lozada.

Are you familiar with what it is to get on a public bus or taxi and listen to the sentiments of our people? Have you gone to the markets to bargain the prices of basic foods that each day are harder to obtain to calm the hunger of our families?

Did the people send you there to have so many privileges, bodyguards, assistants, cabinet chiefs who make it impossible to speak directly to both of you? Who pays you? Who pays your food, your transportation, your health insurance, your security, your planes, your costs? We do: the people which you were once part of.

Did the people send you to impose such a brutal, irrational, arrogant and neoliberal "gasolinazo" (an 82 percent hike in gasoline prices) that will make the people, who barely survive if they have the luck to have a stall in the market or a job, even poorer?

You always said that neoliberalism has failed. Is the gasolinazo a revolutionary and popular measure? Or is it that your economic model has failed?

Why must you - like all the governments previous to yours have done - carry out your failures behind the backs of the population, notably over those making minimum wage whose median income is fifty times less than yours and whose needs are one hundred times greater than yours?

Álvaro García Linera at the home of Oscar Olivera.

What a pain that you always say that power is in the hands of the people, that this is an indigenous-popular government, what a pain that all of this is a lie: LLULLAS! (A very strong indigenous Quechua word for "liars.")

Luckily, thanks to the struggles in which we have been together, we learned something very important. We learned to think and act for ourselves so that never again would anyone tell us what we must do, so that nobody ever again would be able to trick us so that the popular vote, trust and hope that has come in recent times from the most impoverished and humble sectors would be converted into a party for the rich, the well-off, the neoliberals in sheep's clothing, the "beauty pageant contestants." The process is not propaganda, it is not a speech, it is not about marketing: the process is to change the lives of the people. And read this well, because we won't allow ourselves to be tricked again by anybody. That's the way that people - who come, like you, from the breast of The People - are.

We would like to finish by saying something that an Aymara elder said: The indigenous are not defined by physical traits, nor language, nor last name, nor culture. The indigenous come from an attitude of generosity, of respect, of reciprocity, transparency, of listening to others.

We ask you: Do you have that? From below and to the left, as the Zapatistas say, we see arrogants who decide everything, who don't listen to anyone, who discriminate, who insult, who disqualify, who defame. Is that how you want to remain in power for many years?

Oscar Olivera and Evo Morales after Morales' 2005 election to the presidency.

The problem is that you don't understand the enormous responsibility that you assumed as part of this process with our people and other peoples of the world: of demonstrating that it is possible to govern ourselves, that it is possible to lead by obeying, that it is possible to construct another model of development, of "good living," that another world is possible. This was a process that delivered itself to you with hope and joy. The legitimate owner of this process is the Bolivian people, the girls and boys, men and women, youths, elders, from the country and from the city, whose effort cannot be worn down, diverted, usurped, expropriated, betrayed or subordinated by anyone, even less by you and those who equivocally decide for us.

We don't care about governments. We care about the people and this process is losing the social base that it cost us so much to construct while returning it to the right against which we fought and will fight.

To make you understand that we exist we must mobilize and this we will do, do not forget it.

But we will not mobilize to fight among brothers and sisters in the way that you've been encouraging in these years in your incapacity, and the result is in Huanuni, Cochabamba, Pando, Yungas, Sucre... where so many brothers and sisters, all children of Mother Earth, have hated and died.

Alvaro, we already told you: The people come first, and later the numbers and statistics.

Do not confront us. Do not provoke us. Do not divide us or ignore us. We exist. We are dignified. We will struggle against everything that harms our daily lives.

-The repeal of your anti-popular and nefarious Decree 748 (to end subsidies on the price of gasoline)

-The decolonization of the Plurinational State

-That no political party, not of the left, the center or the right, can benefit from or involve itself in our actions and decisions

-Like in 2000, like in 2003, Cochabama and El Alto defeated the anti-popular policies.

Oscar Olivera Foronda

Marcelo Rojas

Abraham Grandydier

Aniceto Hinojosa Vasquez

Carlos Oropeza

Transformative Organizing

2010-11-23T01:13:00.016-05:00

I've got something special for you this month -> a sneak preview from the next issue of Left Turn! Below is a review by LT editor Max Uhlenbeck of two distinct documents both exploring something they are calling "transformative organizing".

As Max points out in his review, the piece by Social Justice Leadership gets at the need to not only make demands upon oppressive powers but to also shift our individual and collectively embodied practices toward our values. It is here that I think a third document, So That We May Soar by Another Politics is Possible and LA COiL, has something to add to the conversation. Although we don't use the term transformative organizing, So That We May Soar, which was also prepared for distribution at this past summer's US Social Forum in Detroit, explores "prefigurative politics", a notion akin to SJL's embodied practices. In particular, this document co-written by at least a dozen organizers from NYC, LA and places in between, focuses on horizontality and intersectional struggle as two practices that are crucial to embody if we are to realize our democratic and transformative visions for the world. Although not yet available on-line, you can check out a review of So That We May Soar and the workshop LA COiL led in connection to it -as well as a snippet of the document itself- at Suzy Subways' blog, AIDS and Social Justice. I've also got a few copies left so drop me a line if you'd like me to send you one :-)

In other news, Movement for Justice in El Barrio co-hosted the National Encuentro of Organizations and Struggles of the Other Campaign in Atenco with the People's Front in Defense of the Land on November 12-14. Here are two articles from Hermann Bellinghausen covering the gathering for La Jornada (1,2).

Meanwhile, Raúl Zibechi was here in NYC. Raúl's visit was full of great encounters but perhaps the richest was an informal dinner with S'bu Zikode, elected President of Abahlali baseMjondolo (the South African Shackdwellers' Movement). Although I can't share the details of that conversation here, you can find several videos from S'bu's visit at Abahlali's website as well as an article, When the Poor Become Powerful Outside of State Control, which he wrote for Pambazuka News during his visit to the US. As for Raúl, we're planning to have some of his presentations up in audio and transcript format sometime down the road so stay tuned!

And without further ado, here's that Left Turn sneak preview...

HOW IT WOULD FEEL TO BE FREE
a review by Max Uhlenbeck
from the forthcoming issue #38 of Left Turn Magazine

---
The 7 Components of Transformative Organizing Theory
By Eric Mann
The Labor and Community Strategy Center, 2010

Transformative Organizing: Toward Liberation of Self and Society

By Social Justice Leadership
Social Justice Leadership, 2010
---

If there is anything we have learned from the political struggles of the 20th-century United States, it has been the great importance of grassroots and mass-based organizing. From the IWW to the CIO, the early Communist Party to the rise of the civil rights movement, the question of how to organize and refine best practices has always remained central.

Eric Mann, director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center (LCSC) in Los Angeles, produced the pamphlet The 7 Components of Transformative Organizing Theory in anticipation of the 2010 US Social Forum. These ideas will be further explored in a book to be published next year, The 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer: A Journey in Transformative Organizing. Mann lays out LCSC’s concept of Transformative Organizing (TO) by attempting to place it in historical context.

Following from the proud tradition of indigenous resistance to European colonialism and the early anti-slavery abolitionists, Mann describes TO as “characterized by a militant opposition to racism, war, and the abuses of the US empire, strategized by a broad array of people who self-identify as revolutionary, radical, liberal or progressive.” This is juxtaposed to two other major approaches driving social change: right-wing organizing, “as reflected in the Klan, White Citizens Councils, Christian conservatives, and today the vigilantes and the Tea Party reactionaries,” and pragmatic organizing, which has “fought for specific reforms in the interest of working people that have often been limited in scope, characterized by anti-left ideology, and, at times, an implicit deal with the US empire.”

Mann, a veteran of the civil rights movement, has focused much of his recent years on work with LCSC’s flagship project, the Bus Riders Union. He argues that TO at once works to transform the system itself as well as the consciousness of the people who participate in the process of building organizations and movements, especially the organizers, “as they stand up to the right, reach out to the people, and take on the system.”

He is careful not to antagonize LCSC’s allies in the pragmatic camp, seeing the debate as a question of strategy rather than morality. Pragmatic organizing institutions and individuals are often allied with TO partners, and do much important work in working-class communities across the country. However, they are inherently limited, according to Mann, because their analysis does not see that the US is a structurally racist, imperialist power. “Transformative organizing, therefore, is situated in a worldwide movement with a strategy to challenge the US empire… Transformative organizers challenge the moral legitimacy and ideological hegemony of the capitalist system and its historical master narrative of empire building.”

The strength of Mann’s writing lies in his masterful ability to accessibly and sharply summarize the rich and various traditions of US radicalism, the demands those organizations and movements put forward, and the underlying political principles which should guide any transformative organizing as we move forward. The part of Mann’s text that still leaves something to be desired lies in his deliberate emphasis on this relatively new term, ‘transformative organizing,’ without adequately and clearly defining what it is, and specifically what distinguishes TO within the larger tendencies of mass-based organizing with a left or anti-imperialist framework. Mann’s writings have long successfully articulated vital movement analysis, but he does not quite break new ground, at least in the pamphlet version of his TO text.

Crucial Intentions

This is where the NYC-based Social Justice Leadership (SJL) picks up, with their pamphlet Transformative Organizing: Toward Liberation of Self and Society. Asserting that we are at a turning point in history, and also potentially a turning point in the evolution of grassroots organizing, SJL poses the question, “Will the social justice movement of the 21st century meet the demands of the changing times, or will it we be swept into the dustbin of history?” Arguing that “most social justice organizing in the US has focused outward… its potential greatly limited by its strict focus on external fights and short-term change,” SJL differentiates Transformative Organizing as a practice “which combines an ambitious emphasis on long-term vision, ideology and movement building with attention to internal personal and organizational transformation.”

For years, SJL has developed trainings and convened movement discussions with organizations like Domestic Workers United, Make the Road, and Mothers on the Move. SJL outlines four crucial principles of TO. Transformation begins with self-awareness; intentional practice leads to transformation; transformation requires vision; transforming society requires ideological, strategic, mass-based organizing. Putting forth these accessible yet deeply profound principles, SJL takes on the challenge of combining elements of traditional mass-based organizing strategies with new practices of personal grounding and self-care that transcend the often individualistic responses to these issues within the consumer-capitalist framework.

The concept of intentional practice is particularly exciting. SJL writes that “intentional practices are those we undertake to change how we show up in the world, and they can manifest as personal practices or political practices. They are new actions that we take to change our physical, emotional, and mental orientation. By practicing different ways of acting, we can align our actions with our vision for who we want to be and how we want to act. Intentional practices interrupt our old way of being, and they create the possibility for new action.”

While much of the writing within activist communities addressing such important concerns as personal trauma or spiritual growth has been limited in its inward or small-group orientation, SJL sees the concept of TO as something that can and must be built to scale. Millions of people must be organized if we are to reach a scale that can challenge the current power structure and contend with society’s embodied practices. Organizing efforts must reach mammoth proportions and model compelling democratic processes if we are to wield sufficient power to democratize the broader society.

The concept of transformative organizing, something still very much in development, is certainly a most welcome theoretical contribution to the current literature and conversation about organizing strategies at this critical juncture in human history. Credit Eric Mann and the LCSC with doing the hard work of articulating what a transformative organizing framework might look like, and SJL for pushing that concept further towards a practice that will actually get us there.

Raúl Zibechi

2010-10-30T16:35:00.021-04:00

Zibechi's first book to be translated into English

Reading his book-length work in Spanish over the past five years, Raúl Zibechi has been for me like a boat out to sea yet in the horizon... detectable with the eye or, perhaps, a good ear but nevertheless beyond reach. So it's with great pleasure that I discovered that this year Dispersing Power has appeared in English and next month Zibechi himself will be arriving on the shores of NYC.

Zibechi will be at Bluestockings on Thursday, November 11 at 7p and with the Militant Research Group on Friday, November 12 from 2-4p in the Sociology Department Lounge (Room 6112.04) at the CUNY Grad Center... We'll be journeying through the city with him and organizing some other, less formal events so please be in touch if you're interested... also of note that week are Bluestockings appearances by Benjamin Dangl on Tuesday, November 9 at 7p and Kolya Abramsky (an author featured here not once or twice, but three times) on Friday, November 12 at 7p in support of his book, Sparking a Worldwide Energy Revolution: Social Struggles in the Transition to a Post-Petrol World.

You can find Zibechi's monthly English-language reports for the Americas Program here and although he has been churning out a great deal of excellent analysis lately on the conflicts between South America's left governments and socio-political movements, I want to leave you here with a bio of Zibechi written for his visit by Marina Sitrin and a piece that he published over two years ago; a piece that should give you a good idea of where he's coming from.

And lastly, thank you to all who helped create and attended Monday's fundraiser for the National Encuentro of Organizations and Struggles of the Other Campaign -> it was a great time!

Raúl Zibechi is a life long militant, journalist and writer. His works deal primarily with social movements in Latin America, where he lives and is from, and movements who are creating alternatives and dignity through the horizontal construction of new territories with the creation of other powers.

Raúl was a part of the revolutionary struggles in Latin America and was then forced into exile when the brutal military dictatorships took power. He continued to organize and write from outside his native Uruguay, and returned soon after the fall of the dictatorship there. He has never stopped organizing, resisting and creating.

Raúl is active in a number of ways. When he is writing he is often doing so in a way that is participating in a larger conversation. He does not write books for the sake of writing. He intervenes in conversations. Writing is a political tool.

For example, his book on the Rebellion in Argentina was one of the first ones published, and played an important role in the conversations about what was taking place there. Another book he wrote a few years ago had to do with the concept of territory. Territory as the construction of other powers, and the need to do so in geographic space and real time. For example, with workers taking over a factory, neighbors creating a garden to feed themselves, or the unemployed opening space on the road blockade. Not physical space as much as the political space – what people are able to do with one another in the space once there was a blockade.

His latest book on Dispersing power is exactly this. A part of a conversation about what to do with / about the state. We have not gotten rid of it, we do not want to be a part of it, but we cannot ignore it. (It does not ignore us!) So, how might we use it, avoid it, take parts of it … His work relates to the biggest questions for the social movements in Latin America today. It is also super relevant for groups and movements in the US and globally.

Zibechi’s books include:

Territories in Resistance: Political Cartography on the Urban Latin American Periphery (2008); Autonomies and Emancipations (2008); A Horizontal View: Social Movements and Emancipation (1999), The Youth Rebellion of the 1990s, Social Networks and the Creation of an Alternative Culture (1997) and The Streams When They Run Low, the Challenges of Zapatismo (1995).

Zibechi's writing has appeared in journals throughout the world, from Pagina 12 and MU in Argentina to Socialism and Democracy, Monthly Review, and Counterpunch in the US, The Guardian in the UK and La Jornada in Mexico. He is the editor of the weekly Brecha, in Montevideo, Uruguay.

The Revolution of 1968: When Those from Below Said Enough!
By Raúl Zibechi
Original published by the Americas Program on June 11, 2008

There have only been two world revolutions. One took place in 1848, the second took place in 1968. Both were historic failures. Both transformed the world. The fact that both were unplanned, and therefore in a profound sense spontaneous, explains both facts—the fact that they failed, and the fact that they transformed the world. -Immanuel Wallerstein

Historical Events are not points, but extend to before and after in time, only gradually revealing themselves. -Fredric Jameson

The four decades that have passed since the "Worldwide Revolution of 68" — a concept coined by Immanuel Wallerstein — seems like sufficient time to attempt to understand the direction taken from that moment on by the anti-systemic struggle in Latin America. In order to do that we must divert our attention from large epic events such as the Tet Offensive of the Vietnamese fighters, the May manifestations in Paris, and the Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City, just to recall three events that had an impact throughout the whole world.

The truth is that these three events do not account for all of the social and political energy that was circulating during those years. Thinking only about our continent, what must be added are the workers' uprising in Córdoba — The Cordobazo of 1969 — which forced the withdrawal of Juan Carlos Onganía's military dictatorship; the onslaught of the urban struggles in Chile, which modified the structure of cities and brought Salvador Allende to the presidency in 1970; the farmers' struggles in the Peruvian mountains, which forced out the military government of Juan Velasco Alvaro, starting in 1968, to carry out the largest agrarian reform of that time period after the Cuban agrarian reform; the impressive rise of workers and miners in 1970 in Bolivia who built a Popular Assembly, an organ with which they were able to contest the power of the dominant classes. In each country it is possible to include events and processes which can easily be linked to what has generically been merely referred to as "68."

Nevertheless, one must dig deeper in order to get to the bottom of the long-term changes that allow us to speak of a before and an after of those years. What remains if we take from '68 the multitudinous protests on main avenues? If we leave the colossal although fleeting events of that period? Responding deeply involves us in a way of seeing the world differently than the hegemony, similar indeed to that which the Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos practices. He maintains that, "The large transformations do not start from the top nor with monumental and epic events, but rather with movements that are small in form and that appear irrelevant for the politician and analyst at the top."1

These changes were not immediately made visible, but rather are spread out almost imperceptibly or through a progressive and ascending manner, from the periphery to the center, from remote rural areas to the cities, from daily life to recognized cultural forms. But they do not do it following European and North American sociology of analytical logic regarding "social movements." That is, analyzing the "characteristics of the organizations" that develop "cycles of protest" that start when "social actors" take advantage of "the structure of political opportunities" to deploy "repertoires of social action" that allow them to reach their "objectives and ends" in an "interaction with the state" and its allies. It is difficult for us to understand what is occurring in the basements of our societies by following this conceptual road.

One of the most notable results of the events of '68 is the revelation of those from below, or rather their differentiation and visibility, to later rehearse the uprising or insurrection from the lowliest depths to proclaim "that's enough!" Over time this evolved into the creation of another world, different from the hegemonic world. To see that, it is necessary to take a view similar to the one Marcos attributes to anthropologist Andrés Aubry, which implies going beyond the exterior and what is visible in order to understand the side of the people "that is closed off to the outside."2

A New Generation of Struggles

The first thing that stands out is the birth in large numbers of a new breed of organizations that embody social causes that are different from those that up to that moment had taken center stage, such as student and trade union movements. Although this is by no means an exhaustive list, the CRIC (Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca) was born in 1971 in Colombia, which later would contribute to the creation of the ONIC (National Indigenous Organization of Colombia). In 1972 Ecuarunari, the organization of mountain-dwelling Quichuas was created, which played a decisive role in the formation of the CONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador). In 1973 the Tiahuanaco Manifesto in Bolivia was sent out by a group of students, teachers, and Aymara peasants, altering the history of social struggles by placing the issue of oppression next to exploitation, which up until that moment had been the exclusive focus. In 1974 The Indigenous Congress of San Cristóbal de las Casas took place in Chiapas, where for the first time diverse Indian languages interconnected with one another and thus overcame old divisions. All of these were initiatives linked to the indigenous and peasant worker world, which in those years was struggling to become independent from both church and state. The following years saw the onslaught of associations of a new class: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, in 1977, became the hinge and turning point for the new trade unions and Argentina piqueteros. Toward 1979 landless peasant workers in southern Brazil—whose organizational experience had been brutally severed by the dictatorship that came to power in 1964—started the first occupations of what would later be called the MST (Movement of Landless Rural Workers); that same year the "Katarista" current that rose up from the Tiahuanaco Manifesto was able to form an autonomous center, the Confederation of Bolivian Peasant Workers Unions (La Confederación Sindical Unica de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia). These organizations grouped together long periods of construction and growth, but also served as trampolines for new advances that only time could unveil.

With all the new details that these movements took into account, it was nonetheless a first step. Unlike what happened when it was the party who had a leading position at the head of the movement, there was a strong dose of autonomous action in this new wave of organizations, even with those that converged with political organizations. And now we are before a new age that has produced a reaction that Wallerstein denominates an "endogenous illness" of the worker; at the same time that they fight against the traditional enemies—imperialism, capitalism, and local elites—their reactions embody the limits of the old left: "We cannot understand 1968 without simultaneously considering it as a cri de couer against the evils of the world system and as a fundamental questioning of the opposition strategy of the old left against the world system."3

In Latin America these new organizations started a multidimensional growth: they expanded their influence outward in a ripple-like manner, much like a rock tossed into a pond. Above all however, they started to stir the deep waters of social sectors that up until that moment had not made their voices heard independently. Instead, they had joined large conglomerates in which their voices were barely audible. Something that was occurring ever since the independence revolts was that these factions — popular, indigenous, and afro, not to mention women and other "minorities" — were risking their lives in wars that in the strict sense were not theirs.

What is true is that toward the 1970s, those who lived at the bottom of our societies started to construct their own organizations, without party, church, or strongman guidance. What's more important, they started to make their voices heard using their own forms and manners. At the onset, they did it while appearing to respect the ways of the institutions, i.e. the hegemonic culture, but as they became more self-assured of their cause they started to demonstrate that they respected a different view of the world and were built upon different cultural bases.

Of the Land

The fight for land is a common characteristic for all actors from below. The recuperation of land is a necessary step in the long and winding process of confrontation. Since we learned that the land was not the final objective but rather the first step, the logic of land ownership in which we are immersed at the beginning of the millennium becomes apparent, because "the fight for land is the fight for a determined territory."4 Millions of hectares were recovered by farm-workers and indigenous peoples both legally and illegally, by agrarian reform or through invasions and seizures.

Although it is a process that started out in rural areas at the hands of homeless Indians and farm-workers, it has also spread throughout the large cities of the continent, in those centers of capital domination where neighborhoods and even entire cities that somehow replicate the rural experience have started to take form. The self-determined construction of popular neighborhoods at the peripheries of large cities, as signaled by work on Ciudad Bolivar in Bogotá, is "the prolongation of the fight for land that for decades has covered the countryside of our country, expressed now in a city in the form of a struggle for housing."5 The protestors' neighborhoods, with their retaken factories, such as the hills of Caracas, the peripheries of São Paulo, Asunción, Bogotá, and Lima, show the strength of the poor in urban territory.

The real divergence from previous time periods is the creation of territories: the long process of conformation of a social sector that can only be built while constructing spaces to house the differences. Viewed from the popular sectors, from the bottom of our societies, these territories are the product of the roots of different social relations. Life is spread out in its social, cultural, economic, and political totality through initiatives of production, health, education, celebration, and power in these physical spaces. As Bernardo Mançano points out, "A social class does not act out in the territory of another social class."6 Somehow, the territorialization of social subjects is a response to the territorialization of urban and rural capital. It is also a replica of the poor's "accumulation through dispossession," as geographer David Harvey interprets the neoliberal period, during which time capital tried to recover after the revolution of 1968.

For the first time in the history of capitalism a change was produced by which the workers were capable of causing the systematic crisis. Giovanni Arrighi tells us, "In previous hegemonic crises the intensification of the rivalry between the great powers preceded and structured the intensification from top to bottom of the social conflict, in the crisis of U.S. hegemony the latter completely preceded and configured the former."7 The crisis was provoked by "a wave of worker militancy" toward the end of the 1960s that "preceded and configured the crisis of Ford's policies."

This fact is fundamental in order to understand two issues of great importance: Options used by capital to overcome the crisis and the consequential options of the popular sectors. The elites dismantled welfare and let go all pretense of integrating the dangerous classes, betting on war as a way of earning. That is neoliberalism. The lower classes, more and more conscious of the fact that the objective of those in power is to get rid of them—at least entire portions of them, specifically the youth—are turning their open spaces into trenches. "It's the poor's strategic response to the crisis of old territoriality of factories and ranches, and capital's reformulation of the old methods of domination."8

I propose that in Latin America one differentiating feature of 1968 is the opening toward the territorialization of those involved: Indians, farm-workers, and popular urban sectors. However, the logic of territory is very different from that of the social movement. While one acts in accordance with the demands of the state, the other is "living space"9 — characterized by the capacity to integrally produce and reproduce the daily lives of its members in a totality that is not unified but rather diverse and heterogeneous. Territory has a self-centered logic: although it formulates demands from the state it is not organized with this in mind.

While the forms of organization and the objectives and the construction of identities are the focus point for the social movement, the social relationships that are built upon the re-appropriation of land and the means of production are what are decisive for the "territories of emancipation"10 — not the production of merchandise but rather values that the whole community can use, because those social relationships are not capitalist. While the social movement triumphs when it achieves its demands, the territories triumph by consolidating and expanding every day, making those islands surrounded by capitalism "not a refuge for self-satisfaction but rather a small boat to navigate from one island to another and another ..." as Marcos has pointed out.

The territorialization of subjects in revolt, which is really what is happening on this continent, forms part of a deep political and theoretical revolution. It is a new form of practicing change whose best exponents are the Zapatistas. Setting up territories creates sovereignty, autonomy, self-determination—in sum, self-government. It has to do with different societies than those that are born in the bosom of capitalist society in decline. The communities of the "caracoles" and people's governing assemblies of Chiapas, the indigenous assemblymen of Norte del Cauca, the Aymara housing communities in the Bolivian Altiplano, but also the slums of El Alto and many other cities are different and diverse forms of popular self-governance. Although different and diverse with different levels of development, they are born, live, and fight to grow down and to the left.

Territories, Power, Revolution

The cultural-political process initiated by the rebellions of 1968 is also modifying the imaginary process regarding the transition to a new world. Save for a small number of people, few doubted that the key to the construction of a better society lay in the conquest of state power, be it through institutional means, insurrection, or after a prolonged war. But the territorial logic modified this image born with the French Revolution.

Although the Zapatistas were the first to explicitly formulate that they were not trying to take state power but rather construct a new world (which of course included the creation of other powers not in line with the State), this idea was already implicit in the form of construction that the most important movements of the continent had already adopted. The construction of territories in which non-capitalist social relationships are able to nest started a process whose focus is the creation of other powers, and not conquering state power. Thus a chance "return" to one's origins is recorded. At the beginning of the socialist movement, it was Karl Marx who time and time again returned to the theme of transition, imagining it always as a chance "birth." He defended the parable of social change in which the creation of a new world and revolution are two distinct entities, but not in the sense of those who propose a strategy in two steps — the seizure of power and then the construction of socialism — but rather something more complex and natural.

In The Civil War in France, upon evaluating the Paris Commune, Marx sustains: "The workers have no utopia that is ready to be implemented by the decree of the people (...) They do not have to achieve any ideals, but rather to set free the elements of a new society that the old antagonizing bourgeois society carried close to its chest."11 "Set free" or "liberér" is telling us that the new society already existed in its origin in the bosom of capitalism to some degree of development. That is why he also used the parable of birth. The revolution, as an act of force, forces the birth, sets free, and liberates that which already is living in an embryonic form so that it may continue to grow.

We can see these "elements of the new society" in the autonomous municipalities of Chiapas and in the shelters of Norte Del Cauca. And in an even more embryonic form, we can see them in thousands of landless settlements, in indigenous Aymara, Quechua, Mapuche, Ayamara, and tons of other native communities. We can also see them in very many urban peripheries. These are bits and pieces of the new world that must fight to grow. If the social movement continues to develop through resistance and struggle and through the non-capitalist social relationships that exist in the aforementioned territories, then capitalism will continue to dig itself deeper into crisis.

At some point "it will be necessary to break the chains" (Marx) that connect the capitalist social relationships. It will be a colossal fight, a true revolution that will contribute to the birth of the new world that the territorialized movements have been creating for a number of decades.

Translated for the Americas Program by Eliot Brockner.

Raúl Zibechi is Brecha de Montevideo journal's international analyst, social movements lecturer, and researcher at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and consultant to several social groups. He is a monthly contributor to the Americas Policy Program.

End Notes

1. Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, "Coloquio Aubry. Parte I. Pensar el Blanco," San Cristóbal de las Casas, 13 de diciembre de 2007.

2. Idem, "Parte VI. Mirar el Azul."

3.Immanuel Wallerstein, "1968: el gran ensayo" en Arrighi, Hopkins, Wallerstein, Movimientos Antisistémicos, Akal, Madrid, 1999, p. 99.

4. Bernardo Mançano Fernandes, "Territorios, teoría y política," intervención en el Seminario Internacional "Las configuraciones de los territorios rurales en el siglo XXI, Universidad Javeriana, 25 de marzo de 2008.

5. Corporación Taliber, "Potosí-La Isla. Historia de una lucha," Bogotá, 1998, p. 9.

6. Bernardo Mançano Fernandez, idem.

7. Giovanni Arrighi y Beverly Silver, Caos y orden en el sistema-mundo moderno, Akal, Madrid, 2001, p. 219.

8. Raúl Zibechi, "Los movimientos sociales latinoamericanos: tendencias y desafíos," en revista OSAL No. 9, Buenos Aires, Clacso, enero de 2003.

9. Bernardo Mançano Fernandes, idem.

10. Concepto acuñado por el geógrafo brasileño Carlos Walter Porto Gonçalves.

11. Carlos Marx, La guerra civil en Francia, Editorial Progreso, Moscú, 1980, pp. 68-69.

Spring Breakers Sin Miedo

2010-09-30T22:46:00.017-04:00

A dark and humorous window into the truth behind the War on Drugs in Mexico... Just the latest from some of my dear friends from the 2010 School of Authentic Journalism.

With tongue planted firmly in cheek, Greg Berger has been building the Revolutionary Tourist Project since 2003, and if my instincts (and eyes) serve me well, he may have had something to do with a crew called Los Detonadores whose recent intervention around the Mexican Bicentennial went viral throughout the country (here's the version with English translation).

In other zapagringo news, there are going to be a number of events in October here in NYC related to the Other Campaign. On Wednesday, October 6 an event The Struggle for Autonomy in Oaxaca: State Repression against San Juan Copala will be held at Bluestockings. On Wednesday, October 13 Movement for Justice in El Barrio is hosting a Victory Celebration for Atenco at Judson Memorial Church. And the most exciting Other Campaign news of October is yet to be released... so stay tuned!

Further south, news surrounding the "attempted coup" in Ecuador continues to flow. Here is an interesting, if informal, update that arrived in my inbox a few hours ago:

The situation in Ecuador today is further complicated by the disillusion that the very social forces that elected President Correa have with his actions in office. The CONAIE (Federation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador), the leading national indigenous movement with strong alliances with labor and other social forces, held a press conference today to say that it is neither with the police forces nor with President Correa. The CONAIE and its hundreds of thousands of participants is not only responsible for Correa's election, but its mobilizations caused the rapid-fire resignations of previous presidents of Ecuador in this century.

The situation thus also shines a light on the growing rift in the hemisphere between the statist left and the indigenous left and related autonomy and labor movements. The CONAIE is basically saying to Correa, "You want our support, then enact the agenda you were elected on." Whether one sees this as a dangerous game of brinkmanship or something that actually strengthens Correa's hand by placing him in the middle zone ideologically, it is worth seeing this at face value and beware of getting led astray by some of the usual suspect conspiracy theorists of the statist left who are predictably out there barking that the CONAIE is somehow an agent of imperialism, dropping rumors of US AID funding but never seeming to exhibit the hard evidence. Sigh. What Johnny-One-Notes! They wouldn't know nuance if it slapped them in the face. For them, you either line up lock-step with THE STATE (if it is "their" state) or you're a running dog of capitalism. That kind of Stalinist purge mentality should have died with the previous century.

The CONAIE's grievances happen to be very legitimate. Of course, they do not justify a coup d'etat, but the CONAIE is not participating in or supporting the coup d'etat. It is saying to Correa; we'll have your back, when you have ours.

In a brief piece for the Guardian UK last month, Raúl Zibechi provides some context for the tension described above. A tension that is growing between the "governments of change" and the socio-political movements of the region. Here is the statement directly from CONAIE. And the future is still unwritten...

Healing Justice

2010-09-17T16:07:00.007-04:00

Third Root Community Health Center is a worker-owned cooperative business providing accessible, empowering, and collaborative healthcare in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. We want holistic medicine, the oldest form of healthcare, to be available to everyone, as it has been for millenia. Our Center is shaped by our very own clients, community, and students, who inform us about their needs and what would help them feel the most at home at Third Root.

If you are in the NYC-area, come on out Tuesday to support a powerful new outpost for Healing Justice here in Flatbush. I've just started a 12-week herbal education program with them and I already love it - the combination of history, politics, knowledge and care that they are bringing to this work is truly exciting.

Third Root participated in the second US Social Forum this past summer in Detroit and wrote this reportback. A little closer to home, they've worked as an accountability and support partner for the Challenging Male Supremacy Project, for which I'm so very grateful. They also participated in a recent event at the Brecht Forum dubbed Healing Organizers. It's the words of a co-presenter at that event, Cara Page, a friend and compa in the struggle for transformative justice, that I want to share with you now to really ground us in what this healing justice is about...

Reflections from Detroit: Transforming Wellness & Wholeness
by Cara Page
originally posted on the INCITE! blog

She had learned to read the auras of the trees and stones and plants and neighbors. Had studied the sun’s corona, the jagged petals of magnetic colors and then the threads that shimmered between wooden tables and flowers and children and candles and birds…She knew each way of being in the world and could welcome them home again, open to wholeness… -Toni Cade Bambara, The Salt Eaters

I come by way of Black Seminole, African American and Austrian ancestry a mixed creed despite eugenic laws that would render me dead or expendable. I write this piece in memory of my ancestors and allies. We will find our way home again and again despite bloodshed and oil spills; despite the misplaced and displaced; despite the forgotten memories we will always find our way home … and make a way out of no way.

This past year I took a deeper dive into the notion of wellness for our movements and the role of well being for organizers. I sat with my dreams and wondered, ‘How far have we been able to come despite noxious toxic waste dumps near our homes, and oil spills and sterilization abuse, population control and genocide…just a few things on our map of oppression. How have we survived?” I’ve been asking these questions to the ‘salt eaters’ and the ‘dreamers’ and the ‘shapeshifters’ among us; what is wholeness? Not an ableist notion of wholeness that implies one specific body or blood type, but a shape of wholeness that intrinsically knows what each individual and collective notion of feeling whole and safe and well can look like. Not the bought ‘wholeness’ you can find only in supreme retreat packages at sunset salons but the kind of ‘wholeness’ that calls on whole communities and whole movements to be well, sustainable and resilient. Who will answer the call to our hurts, our wounds, our double/triple/quadruple pains of oppression and desperation? How will we answer our own calls to wellness and safety?

I’ve been sitting with southern and national healers to remember the role of healing inside of liberation. I am leading a storytelling gathering project with the KINDRED southern healing justice collective to tell the stories of southern healers in the U.S. to map our sites of transformative practice as conduits of social change. Call it a quest for what the role of healing is and how healers move us to and through liberation. What keeps us resilient in our hearts, our blood, our bones? What helps us to rebuild a home? How do we reclaim and re-imagine safety in our homes and movements?

The role of healer as a Black queer woman in the South for me has been to demystify the notion that we are not wrong to use our imaginations and dreams for action? That we are not odd to believe in plants and herbs as integral parts to our paths of liberation? The role of healer as women of color teaches us we can heal ourselves and our own; that we can live, and birth and bury outside of institutional notions of wellness. Yet what is the role of women of color healers inside of liberation? While it has been our legacy it seems to have come undone, uprooted and unnoticed in our collective memories and notions of justice. As a poet, healer, organizer I helped to envision the role of the ‘healer’ and ‘healing’ inside of liberation at the US Social Forum in Detroit (June 2010); a four day convergence of ritual, rallies, workshops etc. pulling together our movements to rebuild, and regenerate new alliances and vision towards strategy and of what is just.

The role of healing at this convergence took the shape and presence of many things. We created two spaces of political and practical application of what we have named ‘healing justice’; a framework that identifies how we can holistically respond to and intervene on generational trauma and violence and to bring collective practices that can impact and transform the consequences of oppression on our bodies, hearts and minds. Through this framework we built two political and philosophical convergences of healing inside of liberation. One was the US Social Forum Healing Justice Practice Space which created a free multimodal practice space to respond to trauma and triggers for organizers; to accept that many of us are tired and burnt out and have not fared well on responding to conditions of our movements and communities by putting our literal bodies on the line. We provided practices such as reiki, acupressure, acupuncture, sound and somatic therapy with practitioners from across different regions in the U.S.. We used energy, body and earth based traditions alongside doulas and midwives to provide knowledge on birth, breath, resiliency and balance. The Healing Justice Practice Space at the US Social Forum was a large room sectioned off for different practices simultaneously that gave us ample space to respond to the conditions of Detroit including; acute asthma, diabetes, and nutrition while also responding to the conditions of our lives and movements (eg. depression, burn out, and survivors of emotional, physical, sexual and psychological abuse and trauma). As we so poignantly stated in our outreach materials, ‘We are responding to a lack of quality of life and conditions, a pattern of systemic abuse and oppression that reinforces the controlling of our bodies/wellness/systems/cultures and our capacity to remember and transform our conditions. We stand in solidarity as a national collective of grassroots healers, medical practitioners and health justice organizers who seek to create systems of wellness outside of state and corporate models that profit from these conditions.’

In our political and practical application of healing justice we also created a People’s Movement Assembly: a four hour interactive session to imagine new strategies and unlikely alliances towards building action. The People’s Movement Assembly (PMA) we held was for Health, Healing Justice & Liberation’ to politicize the role of healing inside of liberation from the perspective of health justice organizers, grassroots healers and integrative medical practitioners. Our vision in the creation of this PMA was to dream for organizing that uplifted the role of healing inside of liberation that will transform our conditions from generational trauma and violence.

Our goals at this convergence were to:

Map the frequencies of where we are in our movements to ground us in our vision towards strategies of sustaining and resourcing our collective wellness

To create spaces that value and honor equal exchange of resources/energies/economics towards obtaining new models for wellness that restore the earth and are adaptable to the current state of our emotional/spiritual/physical/psychic and environmental conditions

To locate the bridges and paths that connect us to memories, dreams and our ancestral legacy of healing traditions towards new models of healing and justice inside of our communities and movements

The questions we began grappling with at the PMA included: How do we redefine what it means to be healthy that is not profit driven or derived from one type of body, and one type of wellness? What are our shared understandings and memories of healing practices as tools of resistance and organizing? How will we sustain, renew and uplift healers and traditions that are being co-opted, displaced, replaced and criminalized?

These questions are large and the next steps many but there was a sense of belonging and visibility amplified for healers, and the participants who came to both of these spaces. As organizers and healers we mapped a way home to well being that did not isolate nor stigmatize our individual and collective bodies nor underestimated our need for wellness.

As a Black queer woman survivor of family and state violence, uninsured in the South I am often coming up against the notions of wellness, who is worthy of wellness and who is deserving of well being based on who can afford it. At the Social Forum I was able to measure a different landscape. What does it mean to be well in our collective bodies and in our collective memories inside of traumatic incidences of state/familial and communal abuse? What does it mean to take care of one another as Women of Color, Queer and Trans People of Color, as communities in the South escaping unethical and horrific practices on our bodies to test our mental and physical capacity for labor and slavery? Is the question really ‘Are we well?’ or is it ‘How can we be well with the overwhelming idea that we are less than human in the first place?

How can one be well if we are not well together? And how will we get well when our sense of wellness often does not include the whole? As Toni Cade pondered in her book The Salt Eaters we have to open ourselves up again to wellness and wholeness, because what is in our memory and intrinsically a part of us has been separated and often taken away from us. It is something we will need to find again as part of understanding our role as organizers who once were healers, or healers who once were organizers.

Cara Page is a Black queer organizer, artist, healer, poet living in the state of things in Atlanta, GA. She comes by way of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts to her home. She is inspired by and works with the KINDRED southern healing justice collective, INCITE!, Project South, Southerners on New Ground, UBUNTU, the Young Women’s Empowerment Project & the Atlanta Transformative Justice Collaborative. She is committed to remembering our memories of resilience and resistance to transform continued slavery & genocide.

Healing & Health Justice Collective Organizing Principles
US Social Forum Detroit 2010

We are committed to People of Color & Indigenous leadership, in partnership with our allies, on building healing justice* work at the USSF.

We will lift up the leadership and conditions of Detroit to define the healing justice practice space and other programming for healing justice inside of a national context.

We enter this work through an anti-oppression framework that seeks to transform and politicize the role of healing inside of our movements and communities.

We are learning and creating this political framework about a legacy of healing and liberation that is meeting a particular moment in history inside of our movements that seeks to: regenerate traditions that have been lost; to mindfully hold contradictions in our practices; and to be conscious of the conditions we are living and working inside of as healers and organizers in our communities and movements.

We are building national relationships and dialogues to cultivate knowledge and to build reflection and exchange of our healing, transformative and resiliency practices in our regions and movements.

We believe in transparency on all levels so that we can have a foundation of trust, openness and honesty in our vision and action together.

We believe in open source knowledge; which means that all information and knowledge is to be shared and transferred to create deeper collaboration and cross-movement building strategy.

As we continue to create spaces for healing and sustainability throughout the US Social Forum and beyond; we will keep ourselves in mind as well as conscious of our own capacity and well being.

We believe in movement building and organizing within an anti-racist and anti-hierarchical framework that builds collective decision making, strategies, vision and action and does not seek to support only one model or one approach over others.

We believe that there is no such thing as joining this process too late; as we move forward, anyone who comes in when they come in are welcomed; and we will always remember that we are interconnected with many communities, struggles and legacies who have joined healing and resiliency practices with liberation in their work for centuries.
June 2010

*Healing justice is being used as a framework that seeks to lift up resiliency and wellness practices as a transformative response to generational violence and trauma in our communities.

PS for Raha

2010-08-17T17:02:00.014-04:00

The Raha crew (pic from Sarah Maple)

Before getting to this month's post here are a few pieces of interest to zapagringo readers: The stellar Desinformémonos has released another issue of its bi-monthly global street paper in 6 languages, including interviews with Arundhati Roy and Oscar Olivera; Immanuel Wallerstein describes the central debate between Latin American left forces today and suggests it may be "the great debate of the twenty-first century"; The South Asia Solidarity Initiative has released a response to Time Magazine's war propoganda cover story, "What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan"; and Jeff Conant at Foreign Policy in Focus explores "What the Zapatistas Can Teach us About the Climate Crisis." And without further ado...

A 'PS' for the Raha Iranian Women's Collective

The workshop at this year's US Social Forum in Detroit was titled "Solidarity, not Intervention: Engaging the Iranian Protest Movement":

Following last year’s contested Iranian presidential election and the street protests of millions of Iranians, a decentralized “green” movement formed around a platform of democracy, transparency, human rights, and social justice. The government reacted with violence, arrests, torture, show-trails, and executions of protesters and activists. Some in the U.S. left have failed to appreciate this protest movement in the context of Iran's political history and Iranians’ economic, social and political grievances. The Iranian government’s defiance of U.S. imperialism has led some to question the legitimacy of the uprising in Iran. In New York, Where is My Vote - NY works to amplify Iranian demands for civil and human rights, and Raha Iranian Women's Collective seeks to integrate these demands into a political framework that foregrounds gender and sexual equality, anti-militarism and opposition to imperialism. This workshop seeks to engage participants in a discussion about the movement in Iran, beginning with an overview of Iranian liberation movements and proceeding to an open and interactive dialogue on what it means to organize trans-national solidarity.

I joined Raha and Where is My Vote for the second half of the session to discuss what I'd learned from transnational solidarity with the Zapatistas. There were also guest speakers sharing their experiences in support of Congolese, Filipin@, Iraqi, and Palestinian self-determination. Other than a good friend of mine, Ryvka, who co-presented on the boycott, divestment and sanctions for Palestine movement (BDS), the other presenters identified as members of the people with whom they are working in solidarity. For my part I mostly covered reflections that I've written about in pieces such as, "Learning Solidarity in the 4th World War."

The discussion was very rich and could have certainly continued well beyond the time of the session. The Raha crew did a great job of holding and facilitating the space, sometimes in spite of participants who were clearly hostile to the proposal of the workshop -> amplifying Iranian demands for civil and human rights and integrating them "into a political framework that foregrounds gender and sexual equality, anti-militarism and opposition to imperialism."

There were a few interesting facts I wanted to share with Raha and the rest of the room that I didn't get to that day. A few points to highlight connections, or entry points for greater connection, between the Zapatistas and Iranian struggles...

The most direct links come from a group of Iranian Marxists who have translated a number of Zapatista documents into Farsi, the majority of them coming from their past 5 years of activity. Unfortunately I never learned to read Farsi and can't divine much more than that, including what the connection might be between that group, and the group of Iranian workers who participated in the World Festival of Dignified Rage, which the Zapatistas' co-hosted in Mexico City and Chiapas over New Years '08-'09.

Hopefully we all remember that it was this same New Years that Israel brutally bombed Gaza. Although we are now talking about Palestine, and not Iran, the struggle for a free Palestine resonates strongly throughout the region. Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos gave a moving speech at the World Festival in response to the attacks. Protests circulated the globe, including Chiapas, and so did Marcos' words. A dear friend, Bilal, who co-founded Left Turn Magazine and now runs a café in Beirut (Ta-Marbuta), wrote me in the days that followed

...i read the marcos statement on al jazeera after having read it in english and they really did a good job translating, it was really nice to read marcos in arabic for the first time. but what is just as interesting are the many comments that follow from all sorts of arabs (from saudi arabia, gaza, morroco, emirates, you name it) who have nothing but praise. they're amazed how someone in the jungles of mexico can capture it all so well...

Part of the reason was perhaps because solidarity has passed in both directions, between Palestine and Mexico, many times over the years. In November of 2006, when the Mexican military entered Oaxaca City to crush a six month long popular commune, Jamal Jumá of the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign spoke up. In a post from August that year I documented several other instances of this relationship... each one a piece of the bridge that links these rebel lands.

Perhaps also relevant here is the emergence of indigenous Chiapaneco converts to Islam, this article even identifying 'Zapatist Muslims.' The thousand or so Zapatista communities of Chiapas are some of the only ones to have constructed enduring peace and solidarity between Catholics and evangelical Christians, so it doesn't surprise me much if some adherents to Islam are now in the mix. They identify as Sunni but even so this is certainly some indicator that the Zapatistas of southern Mexico and the rebellious citizens (religious, secular or otherwise) of the Islamic Republic of Iran are not as far from each other as we might first assume.

'09-'10 Year in Review

2010-07-28T22:15:00.018-04:00

four years. from below. to the left.

Inspired by the Zapatistas' Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle (or simply "the Sexta"), which they released five years ago, you find documented here some of the collective labor of international affiliates (the Zezta Internazional) as well as of the national movement of Mexican adherents known as the Other Campaign. You'll find many Zapatista-inspired intersections with other people and movements in the US and around the world, and the occasional piece coming from Oaxaca where I reported on the Other Campaign in early '06.

2006 was the year Subcomandante Marcos toured Mexico as part of the Zapatistas' participation in building the Other Campaign... with so many organizations, indigenous peoples, communities, families and individuals beginning to build the movement from throughout the country and beyond. It was the year that the autonomous municipality of San Salvador Atenco, on the outskirts of Mexico City, and the six month long commune in Oaxaca City were attacked by the government with more violence than anyone had seen in recent memory. The year that the US-backed candidate for president won the elections through fraud. The year Mexicans played a crucial role in the massive demonstrations of immigrant workers on this side of the border wall.

Here we are four years later... with a ramped up and murderous war on the poor and working people within Mexico funded to the tune of $1.4 billion by the US government under the guise of a War on Drugs, and the proliferation of laws such Arizona's SB 1070 on this side. But, in the words of FORMER political prisoner Nacho del Valle, "Who can imprison the fury of a volcano?"

A Run Down of Zapagringo's Fourth Season

This year many initiatives and struggles begun in the past five years reached new stages. Last October Movement for Justice in El Barrio saw the fall of Dawnay, Day Group, the second mega-landlord trying to gentrify East Harlem who they've played a pivotal role in taking down.

An International Seminar of Reflection and Analysis was held in the days before and following New Years at CIDECI-Unitierra in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas where a book documenting the First International Colloquium in Memory of Andres Aubry, held their two years prior, was presented.

In February the Winter Olympics faced a resistance whose early whispers were first heard in Sonora, Mexico in October of 2007 at the Gathering of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, which was co-convened by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.

In April a national and international solidarity caravan that was attempting to break the paramilitary blockade of the Other Campaign affiliated autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala in Oaxaca was attacked. Paramilitary gunfire killed Bety Cariño (a powerful Mixtec organizer) and Jyri Jakkola (a solidarity activist from Finland). In the ongoing assault against the autonomous Triqui municipality San Juan Copala we can hear the clear echo of 2006, including the murder of an international solidarity activist. Following the attack, more solidarity organizing was born but the blockade continues and San Juan Copala continues suffering under low intensity warfare.

Another quite large wound from 2006, however, moved much closer to healing and transformation at the end of June. The mighty autonomous municipality of San Salvador Atenco won freedom for its 12 remaining political prisoners with support from compañer@s around the world. This is a truly historic victory on the path to justice for Atenco and beyond.

Looking beyond Mexico we can also remember that in 2006 Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos made what was a controversial decision at the time when he declined an invitation to attend the inauguration of Bolivia's first indigenous president, Evo Morales. Marcos had his reasons and they are appearing more and more reasonable four years down the road as the indigenous movements who put Morales into office are revolting against what continues to be a "colonial and oligarchic" state. For a very fair analysis of the situation, if you read Spanish, check out Raúl Zibechi's article in La Jornada from earlier this month. Otherwise this later article of his in English will do. The Mesa 18 Declaration, which came out of the World People's Conference on Climate Change, is also relevant here.

A place all too familiar with the dangers of placing hope in state power that has made its way into the posts of this season is South Africa, where the Poor People's Alliance has been shaking things up for the political class. In September of last year, the ruling African National Congress brutally attacked one of the core member organizations of the Alliance, Abahlali baseMjondolo (the South African Shackdwellers Movement). Having just been visited by them in August, Movement for Justice in El Barrio spoke out against the attack and in support of their compas across the Atlantic. The attack was believed to also be connected to the crackdowns and displacements taking place in the country in advance of June and July's FIFA World Cup. A broad description of the situation of these struggles in South Africa was written by Toussaint Losier for Left Turn, and published online here. Picture the Homeless, Domestic Workers United and The Poverty Initiative are another set of groups from NYC who have been mobilizing support of the Poor People's Alliance, including this creative and educational message of solidarity from the US Social Forum. These struggles have been generating some very powerful analysis alongside their action, such as this critique of some of the ways the idea of Right to the City has been mobilized... even as Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape launches a Right to the City campaign of its own in Capetown!

The Palestinian freedom struggle returned again this year, and appropriately as ever, with the ongoing development of the US-Palestine Youth Solidarity Network and the successful struggle to free Jamal Juma'.

Perhaps most powerfully embodying the expansive vision of zapatismo this year was Movement for Justice in El Barrio's Third Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement, which included fellow organizers from across the Harlems as well as San Salvador Atenco, South Africa and Haiti. In the lead-up to the second US Social Forum this June in Detroit, I co-organized a rooftop fundraiser for Movement where we screened Sleep Dealer, heard from filmmaker Alex Rivera and raised over $1,250 for their delegation!

At the first US Social Forum in 2007, I attended as part of the Another Politics is Possible delegation from NYC. In the time since then, our study group of the same name participated in a roundtable for Upping the Anti and collaborated with LA COiL (Los Angeles Communities Organizing in Liberation) to create a pamphlet further exploring our principles and practices, which was distributed at this year's USSF. Hopefully we'll find an online home for the pamphlet, "So That We May Soar: Horizontalism, Intersectionality and Prefigurative Politics," soon... in the meantime here is a post from a fan featuring a few snippets of the text.

It was also this year that our childcare collective, Regeneración, launched a new website and began organizing in a network with six other collectives from around the country in advance of the Forum. If only they would've let us organize the Children's Forum! But that's a story for a later date...

What has come into much sharper focus this year, and I believe will continue to be at the center of my work, is organizing toward Transformative Justice. Our Challenging Male Supremacy Project has really grown into itself this past season, holding work in NYC as well as across the country and world as part of generationFIVE's Transformative Justice Collaboratives and a Partner in the StoryTelling and Organizing Project.

This focus on transformative justice grows out of my years of commitment and work around penal abolition, engagement with liberatory social/political movements such as the Zapatistas, and my own experiences of child sexual abuse. This was also a year for surfacing in a big way around this last part; especially participation in the creation and cast of Secret Survivors, an oral history theatre work in Ping Chong and Company's Undesirable Elements series.

Somatics has been crucial to building my capacity to hold transformative justice work and work around my experiences of sexual abuse and it is for this reason that I'll continue training as a practitioner in the months and years ahead.

All of this work collided, somewhat brutally for me, this year at the Allied Media Conference and US Social Forum, which were held back-to-back last month in Detroit. It is SO NICE to be on the other side of that.

Looking forward, a lot of this work will heat back up as the summer winds down, and we've got a big fundraising event near the end of the year in celebration of the Brecht Forum's 35th Anniversary. I'm also stepping away from (paid) domestic work after several years as a dear friend passes the baton to me after two powerful years at The Foundry Theatre. I'm coming on as their Community Programs Producer and you can be sure that we've got some exciting stuff in the works for the year ahead :-)

Who knows what else this fifth season will bring? In the words of Octavia Butler, "Whether you're a human being, an insect, a microbe, or a stone, this verse is true. All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is change."

Black Queer Theatre

2010-07-14T08:30:00.010-04:00

I've been holding on to this post for awhile and the time to drop is NOW as Freedom Train Productions' annual new play festival FIRE! is set for ignition. I hope to see you at the 7:30p performance of Origins of Us this Saturday in the Bronx!

Before sharing with you FTP's moving "manifesto for citizen theatre artists", I've got to play catch up with zapagringo history:

* The Allied Media Conference just keeps getting better. If you missed it this year, make sure you are there in 2011 (June 23-26).

* While the neo-colonial FIFA World Cup played out in South Africa, so did the growth and expression of power from below. Here's a video of solidarity from organizers gathered at the US Social Forum in Detroit to the Poor People's Alliance of South Africa, put together by some favorite compañeros of mine, Divad and Tej.

* The Federation of Neighborhood Councils of El Alto, Bolivia (THE indigenous city of the hemisphere) declared the government of Evo Morales to be "colonial and oligarchic" and joins the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia in mobilizations to defend their territory. I could say more but will stop for now, to understand what is happening I highly recommend picking up the absolutely fascinating (and timely) "Dispersing Power: Social Movements as Anti-State Forces" by Raúl Zibechi.

* Arundhati Roy, who had an arrest warrant issued against her earlier this year in India for her interviews and coverage of Maoist rebels, gave a brief interview for the latest issue of Desinformémonos in which she observed, "The indigenous movements and struggles... are our only hope. While the communist resistance movements, including the guerrilla wars, may have something to teach us about resistance, I do not believe that they have the vision or the imagination to show us a way of living sustainably." Here is the English translation of that piece.

* The 12 remaining political prisoners of Atenco, Mexico are finally free! If you don't know how historic this victory is, take a minute to check out my article from earlier this year on the case of Atenco, the struggle of Atenco's People's Front in Defense of the Land, and their connection to East Harlem's Movement for Justice in El Barrio.

* For their part, Movement for Justice in El Barrio is organizing ongoing support for the struggle of Atenco and recently hosted an Encuentro IN San Salvador Atenco for the Other Campaign this past Sunday.

So that is a long way of saying that there is much more to come - including word of my new gig with The Foundry Theatre! Without further ado, here are some potent words from inspirational friends and compañeros in the struggle at Freedom Train Productions (see you on Saturday!):

manifesto for citizen theatre artists

Theatre in the United States today exists in a nation that revolted against its own cultural ministry almost twenty years ago -- a right wing inspired and left wing affirmed attack on artistic expression of race, gender, and sexuality. We birth our work within a larger economic structure that systematically devalues the subjective profits our art offers society -- the well known story of the actor-waiter is one of many cases to which to point.

It is fire, imperative, NOW, and change to re-claim the artist’s stake in a nation gone haywire. Our practice of a citizen theatre artist is one with responsibilities toward connecting the on stage with the off stage struggle.

We believe many theatres hold and aspire to revolutionary values, however, the forces of the anti-citizen state compel theatre artists and institutions from fully realizing all areas simultaneously.

We must state our claim to the people’s symbols and institutions to governance and the artist’s stake in it all. Shaping their process in the image of the world that the citizen theatre artist knows is possible is one way forward.

We’ll do it by switching things up from a majority rules society to a canaries rule humanity where laws and state actions are informed by those most in danger, i.e. canaries in the coal mine. For example, Freedom Train Productions recognizes that black queer protagonists, if they are ever seen on stage, are sequestered off, splintered into different groups, and are not fully empowered in the exchange of ideas. For this theatre work, canaries rule ensures that black playwrights and their black queer protagonists are given ample resources and opportunities to tell their story and the stories of their people.

We’ll do this by openly embracing the inherent feminist and egalitarian ideals of collaboration that our professional medium offers. And we’ll call this tenet stage democratics. Directors, actors, playwrights, technicians, designers, and producers come together to make the good work happen. In some "avant-garde" theatre, multiple individuals hold the position of the director. Sometimes there is no director. In all cases there should be respect for all creative workers, no matter what title they hold. This process asks audiences to hold a fuller set of responsibilities and brings them further into the work.

Finally we’ll cultivate an infinite capacity in re-memory, an exercise that today’s nation-state and unchecked capitalist empires blatantly ignore and actively resists. The citizen theatre artist does this with an unending curiosity to explore and implement theatrical form and tradition. Re-memory debunks the paradigm of Western Theatre as traditional and everything else as unconventional. Black Arts Aesthetics, Magical Realism, Spoken Word, Hip Hop Theatre are indeed traditions and traditional. Re-memory informs new work development, play analysis and dramaturgy, and the staging, rehearsal and production of all work. This tenet also addresses the socio-political responsibility of the citizen theatre artist to address the un-addressed and to order and disorder the untold stories of the private and the public, homes, neighborhoods, and nation-states around the world.

Alright now, let’s go.

- Freedom Train Productions
Brooklyn, New York, 2009

See You in The D!

2010-06-16T23:10:00.011-04:00

People's Movement Assemblies on the Road to the US Social Forum in Detroit

It's that time of the year again, but not only is my favorite conference, the Allied Media Conference, coming around... but so is the US Social Forum. This second iteration of the USSF is coming to the AMC's hometown, Detroit, and their back-to-back! So that means basically that some of us are working our asses off right now :-)

It's exciting though, and you should check out the video above about the People's Movement Assembly process that is building toward and will culminate on the last day of the USSF. Yet one more innovation on the road to radical democracy, peoples power... whatever you wanna call it I think you know what I'm talking about ;-)

If you're gonna be in Detroit, come and find me! I'm involved in a bunch of activities through the different collective work I'm a part of and would love to connect... here's where you'll find me (and some other places I wish I could be too!):

ALLIED MEDIA CONFERENCE

FRI (6/18):
10:45a-12:15p - Power of Storytelling (with Secret Survivors)

SAT (6/19):
9-10:30a - Media Tools for Creating Safe Communities: A Science Fair (with Challenging Male Supremacy Project)

5:30-8p - StoryTelling and Organizing Project Partners Gathering

SUN (6/20):
10-11:30a - Safe in Our Skin: A Paradigm Shift

UNITED STATES SOCIAL FORUM II

WED (6/23):
10a to Noon - Secret Survivors: Using Theater to Break Taboos Surrounding Child Sexual Abuse

1-5p - Politicizing and Transforming Trauma: Somatics, Trauma and Transformative Justice in our Movements, Communities and Lives

THURS (6/24):
11a-Noon - Presentation of our new DVD "Paths to Transformation: Men's Digital Stories to End Child Sexual Abuse" and facilitated conversation about its use, in the Transformative Practices Canopy

Noon-1p - Networking session "How are we cultivating the capacity & commitment of men to challenge male supremacy," in the Transformative Practices Canopy

3-5:30p - Solidarity, not Intervention: Engaging the Iranian Protest Movement (Guest panelist on the possibilities and pitfalls of transnational solidarity activism)

FRI (6/25):
10a-Noon - Building an Intergenerational Movement for Collective Liberation: The Work of Childcare Collectives Across the States... and the Galaxy! (with Regeneración Childcare NYC)

3:30-5p - Challenging Men, Changing Communities: Organizing for Transformative Justice and Against Male Supremacy

SAT (6/26):
10:30a-Noon - Co-hosting a networking and skill-share session for childcare collectives at the Liberation Exploration Station (aka Left Turn Canopy)

Also keep an eye out for these workshops that I won't be able to attend:

* Two from Movement for Justice in El Barrio:
The Zapatista's Other Campaign Breaking Down Borders: Live Cross-Border Dialogue with Mexico
AND
The Zapatista's Other Campaign & The Fight Against Global Displacement

* A workshop led by LA Communities Organizing Liberation (LA COiL, formerly LA Crew), an organization with whom we (Another Politics is Possible) have just collaborated to create a pamphlet they will be distributing at the USSF:
Re-thinking our Vision and Organizing for a Better World

Challenging Male Supremacy Project

2010-06-15T14:45:00.009-04:00

Experiments in Transformative Justice
The Challenging Male Supremacy Project in New York City
by RJ Maccani, Gaurav Jashnani and Alan Greig
Originally published in issue 37 (Jul/Aug '10) of Left Turn (a rough draft was accidently used in the publishing of the magazine; the correct version of the article appears below)

Together with many others, we have come to see male supremacy as a system causing a great deal of violence and harm not only in the world at large, but also within our own radical and Left movements. Whether it’s physical or sexual abuse, talking over others, unsolicited neediness, or shrugging off emotional and logistical work, practices of male supremacy often work to undermine solidarity and community. They harm, traumatize and push people away, placing even more obstacles in our collective path to social transformation.

Male supremacist behavior within our organizing spaces is often allowed to go unchecked because the ‘real struggle’ is thought to be elsewhere, whether in the streets or the halls of government. In addition, some of the most obvious forms of this behavior, such as male sexual violence, can feel especially difficult to address for those of us who recognize that the police and prisons not only fail to prevent this violence but actually produce and reproduce systems of heteropatriarchy, white supremacy and capitalism. Left unaddressed, however, male violence within our communities reinforces the status quo and undermines the belief that a better world is within our collective capacity to create. The joint statement issued back in 2001 as a collaboration by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence and Critical Resistance on ‘Gender Violence and the Prison Industrial Complex’ is particularly instructive on this point, urging “all men in social justice movements to take particular responsibility to address and organize around gender violence in their communities as a primary strategy for addressing violence and colonialism. We challenge men to address how their own histories of victimization have hindered their ability to establish gender justice in their communities.”

Through facilitating or supporting various accountability processes, we’ve also learned that men who have caused harm are often easier to reach if they are engaged by people they already trust, and are frequently more likely to be accountable if they can maintain pre-existing relationships or even build new ones. When we address the problem through this lens, it becomes clear that the responses often employed to address male violence—public shaming, physical punishment, exile from spaces or a community, calling the police or just doing nothing—are at best insufficient and at worst actually counterproductive. Demonization, isolation, retaliatory violence or state intervention not only lead to partial or ineffective solutions, but ultimately can be destructive for all those scapegoated and targeted by the prison industrial complex.

Study-into-Action

The question becomes: how do we create responses to these widespread harms that have the potential to actually build solidarity, create community, and support the healing of those who have been harmed while also challenging the male supremacist context within which the incident occurred? How do we do this without relying on unnecessary violence, exclusion, or state systems? We might call responses that meet these criteria transformative justice, at least to the degree that they seek to not only address the harm but also to transform the convictions and structural conditions that facilitated the harm happening in the first place.

When the three of us first got together, we spent months discussing what we wanted to see and help to create in terms of community responses to violence. The “Transformative Justice Collaborative” model initiated by Generation Five, a Bay Area-based organization focused on ending child sexual abuse, was particularly inspiring to us. All three of us had been involved with work organizing around gender violence or child sexual abuse, and one of us had just co-facilitated a circle process to hold accountable a prominent local activist who had sexually assaulted within the citywide student movement. When we examined the landscape of organizations and collectives developing community-based responses to harm, they were made up predominantly, if not entirely, of cisgender women, transgender and gender non-conforming organizers and activists. We felt that we needed more cisgender men engaged in this work and that we would all need to do some advanced work specifically around male privilege and violence in order to enter future organizing work with more shared analysis, capacity and commitment. In the fall of 2008, we founded the Challenging Male Supremacy Project. We made a conscious decision to use the still somewhat unfamiliar term ‘cisgender’ in doing this work, a term coined by transgender activists used to describe those of us who identify with the sex we were assigned at birth and the gender identity we were raised with.

In an attempt to bring more cis men into this work, as well as to meet an expressed need to challenge male supremacy within various NYC social justice organizing communities, we facilitated our first Study-into-Action from May 2009 to January 2010. For nine months, this group discussed, read and reflected on male supremacy both in our personal as well as our political lives. Facilitating this process for a diverse group of cisgender men from all over the city, we tried to construct spaces and practices of confronting male supremacy in its concrete manifestations, as it intersects with other systems of oppression. For example, in one session we broke into groups to analyze how different racialized masculinities are represented in mainstream media, be it Black, Caribbean, Latino, Asian or white. This was instructive for exploring both how we had related to our own particularly racialized masculinities growing up and how we have been targeted, privileged, or otherwise pigeon-holed in the popular imagination. One of the questions that remained at the end of this session was whether we were seeking to construct new and better masculinities or move beyond and end masculinity.

One novel element of our monthly sessions was our practice of Somatics, an integrative approach to healing and transformation that understands and treats human beings as a complex of mind, body and spirit. With support from Generation Five co-founder and long-time Somatics instructor Staci Haines, who co-facilitated our first session, we tried to adapt Somatics to addressing shared privilege and power (from its more common application to healing from experiences of trauma). We communicated to the group that we incorporated Somatics not simply as a practice of self-help or self-improvement—which is often socially decontextualized and strongly individualistic—but because we feel strongly that we cannot just think and talk our way out of male privilege and male violence. This felt particularly important to us as so much of this violence manifests in relationship to bodies and what we do with and to them. As we shared in the group, we need to work with our whole organisms and transform ourselves at the level of everyday behaviors in order to shift our practices of male privilege.

Building Practice

It became clear over this first cycle of work that there were recurring dynamics that we needed to address and particular skill sets that we needed to develop. One key area involves the development of emotional intelligence and the capacity to provide and seek appropriate support—struggling to replace the norm of cis men who are unable to notice their own or others' emotions and emotional triggers, with one where they reciprocate the support they get and provide support for others in ways that challenge patriarchal social relations.

Another area of focus is developing a profound grasp and consistent practice of consent and moving from a legalistic framework of soliciting permission to a deeper and more nuanced understanding of power. We’ve tried to reframe consent—and particularly the word ‘no’—as something that can make healthier relations possible for all parties, and allow us to maintain connection in the future. At the same time, we’ve strived to question our basic assumptions about sexuality and desire itself, denaturalizing our sexual desires and examining the ways that they’ve been historically and culturally shaped or produced. The third area, finally, is learning to share work that has historically been relegated to women, especially in the home or in formal political settings.

Thus far, we’ve sought to work in these areas through education, skills-building and mobilization with other cis men, and in collaboration with feminist, queer and trans organizers. Part of what the latter has looked like thus far is building solidarity in analysis and practice together. In founding the CMS Project, we’ve joined a patchwork landscape of organizations and collectives in NYC working to eliminate violence against female/queer/trans individuals and communities and/or build alternative forms of safety and accountability beyond the prison industrial complex. We’ve learned from and collaborated with Support New York, a collective who have been doing work around survivor support and community accountability for several years; we’ve also been in touch with members of Reflect, Connect, Move around our shared work on gender violence, while CONNECT—an organization focused on family and gender violence—has shared space and resources with us. We continue to be inspired by Critical Resistance NYC and the People’s Justice Coalition, who are building community-based responses to state violence: the former (as part of a coalition) recently won a campaign to stop construction of a new jail in the Bronx, while the latter is working to foster and support a citywide culture of observing the police as a tactic to deter abuse and brutality on their part.

Before beginning our Study-Into-Action, we also decided to approach some of the groups doing this work and formally partner with them in organizing this project. In the role of Accountability and Support Partners, these organizations gave us feedback on a curriculum outline several months before our first session, helped to shape its structure and content, and met with us halfway through the nine-month program to again give us feedback. The groups included the Safe OUTside the System Collective of the Audre Lorde Project, Sisterfire NYC (a collective affiliated with INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence), Third Root Community Health Center, the Welfare Warriors Project of Queers for Economic Justice, and individual members of the Rock Dove Collective and an emerging queer people-of-color anti-violence group.

As the name suggests, we were hoping to culminate the Study-into-Action with some sort of collective action in support of and useful to one or more of our partners. Lacking a clear opportunity to do so, we instead organized a report back event in March, to which we each invited friends, family and members of our communities. The goals of the event were to organize something collectively between the three of us who facilitated the nine-month program and the nine participants who completed it, to broaden the dialogue and share our commitments with a larger group of people to whom we are actually accountable to in different ways and to create a platform for this dialogue to happen within the context of our accountability and support partner organizations, who also participated in the event, as a way to continue building connection and collaboration. The need for this kind of work was reflected in the packed room of around 100 people who showed up for the report back, representing a rich cross section of the city.

Next Steps

We currently find ourselves in a moment where we are attempting to hold and synthesize all the learning and feedback gained from these experiences with accountability processes, the Study-into-Action and the collective event. Our relationship with Generation Five, with whom we are deepening our understanding of transformative justice and training in Somatics, will continue to be crucial in supporting our next steps following this assessment process.

Presently, we are producing the curriculum developed for the Study-into-Action in order to share it with people from across the country this June in Detroit at the Allied Media Conference and US Social Forum. While in Detroit, we are also looking forward to collaborating with the Story Telling and Organizing Project, an organization that provides a forum and a model for “collecting and sharing stories about everyday people taking action to end interpersonal violence,” and who’s audio stories we used to help ground our discussion on accountability in one of our Study-Into-Action sessions.

Most importantly, we are looking for ways to deepen collaboration with our Accountability and Support Partners locally while continuing to engage and support the Study-into-Action participants and their communities. Whether we remain in our current formation or shift into something else will depend greatly on these two groups’ needs and desires.

In taking on this project, we have learned to embrace the fact that there are real and significant things we stand to lose by undermining male privilege, but that we have honest emotions, healthier relationships, greater dignity and a fuller humanity to gain. Through this work toward transformative justice, it is our hope that we are creating responses to violence and harm that make our vision for a better world—one that offers safety without depending on prisons—not only more likely, but also more credible.

RJ Maccani, Gaurav Jashnani and Alan Greig are founders of the Challenging Male Supremacy Project. You can contact them at cmsprojectnyc [at] gmail.com. A more in-depth exploration of these themes can be found in their contribution to the forthcoming book from South End Press, “The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence in Activist Communities,” edited by Ching-In Chen, Dulani, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha.

In the Shadow of the 2010 World Cup

2010-06-01T15:06:00.005-04:00

Abahlali baseMjondolo march on City of Cape Town demanding an end to their harrassment by the Anti-Land Invasions Unit

A Quiet Coup
South Africa’s largest social movement under attack

By Toussaint Losier
Originally published in Spanish at Desinformémonos
An earlier version of this article appeared in Left Turn Magazine

At roughly 11:30pm on September 26th, a group of 30 to 40 men – survivors are still unsure about the actual numbers –surrounded the community hall in Kennedy Road shack settlement in Durban, South Africa. Brandishing sticks, machetes, and automatic weapons and echoing the language of the state-sponsored internecine political conflict that tore through South Africa during the last years of apartheid, the mob launched an attack on a meeting of the Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) Youth League taking place inside the hall. In the melee that followed, over a dozen people were injured, with four people left dead and the attackers left in control of the hall.

When called to the scene, the local police only took statements from those who now held the hall and arrested eight members of the settlement’s representative governing body, the Kennedy Road Development Committee (KRDC), regardless of whether or not they had been in the settlement the night of the attack. The next morning, the mob that had attacked the community hall returned to the settlement with police and African National Congress (ANC) officials and proceeded to destroy and loot over two dozen shacks, all of them belonging to the elected members of the KRDC.

“We are under attack,” offered a press statement jointly released by the KRDC and AbM a week later. “We have been attacked physically with all kinds of weapons – guns and knives, even a sword. We have been driven from our homes and our community. The police did nothing to stop the attacks despite our calls for help.”

The statement continued: “What happened in Kennedy Road was a coup – a violent replacement of a democratically elected community organization. The ANC have taken over everything that we built in Kennedy Road. We always allowed free political activity in Kennedy and all settlements in which AbM candidates have been elected to leadership. Now we are banned.”

Neoliberal policy

With the African continent’s largest economy and one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, South Africa is considered by most to be a model middle-income developing country. Yet, it is nation wracked by a series of interlocking crises, from the epidemics of rape and HIV/AIDS to those of landlessness and poverty. Much of this has worsened since the mid-1990s, when then President Nelson Mandela voluntarily adopted neoliberal economic policies, in contrast to the ANC’s long held goals of nationalization and socialism. While these macroeconomic policies helped to create a small black middle class, they also contributed to ever growing inequality, with the average black citizen earning an eighth of their white compatriot in 2007. Today, South Africa is considered the most unequal country in the world, ranking lower than Occupied Palestine on the UN’s Human Development Index.

At the same time, South Africa, with its rich history of political struggle and labor militancy, also has one of the world’s highest per capita protest rates. Over the past several years, the country’s largest social movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo (Zulu for “people based in shacks”) has led it fair share of these actions. Emerging in 2005 in the Kennedy Road settlement during the course of a dispute over housing with the local ANC city councilor, the shackdwellers movement has grown to include over 10,000 paid up members in more than thirty informal settlements throughout the province of KwaZulu-Natal.

For the first two years of its existence, AbM’s mobilization efforts were met with state violence and political repression. In 2005, for example, police illegally banned their permitted demonstration and then attacked residents of the Foreman Road when they took to the streets. A year later, police arrested the movement’s President and Vice President on their way to a radio interview, beating and torturing them while in custody. In 2007, police shot at their peaceful marches. Later, the Kennedy Road Six, five of whom were elected members of the KRDC, won their release from jail after their hunger strike (all charges against them were later dropped for lack of evidence). Yet, in spite of these obstacles, some of the South Africa’s poorest citizens have built a democratic and non-partisan organization, impressive as much for its grassroots accountability and internal democracy, as its success in ensuring the participation of shackdwellers in the upgrading of their settlements.

Several weeks after the attack in Kennedy Road, this success continued when the South African Constitutional Court ruled in AbM’s favor in striking down the KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act. Passed by the province in late 2007, the bill gave the provincial minister the power to compel municipalities and private landowners to evict shackdwellers from occupied land and set the time frame in which these actions would occur. If allowed to stand, the act would have served as a template across the country. While the court only found the section giving the provincial housing minister wide latitude in initiating eviction proceeding against shack settlements, the decision remains a major victory in the poor people’s struggle for land and housing. Still in hiding, AbM’s President S’bu Zikode said the court decision “had far-reaching consequences for all the poor people in the country.”

State impunity

In the weeks that followed this most attack, Kennedy Road residents reported that those who carried them out had been left to patrol the settlements, intimidating them and threatening their leaders. ANC Branch Executive Committee officials replaced the KRDC with their own local governing body. Fearing further violence, key leaders of AbM fled the settlement and went into hiding. In the following months, AbM members who did not leave Kennedy Road have been intimidated and assaulted for not coming to ANC meetings. Few have been able to open cases against ANC members because of the support of the police and senior ANC officials. Several of these officials have publicly spoken of the government’s move to liberate’ the community from AbM and their willingness to “jail people to get development going.” There are now allegations that those who participated in the attack have not only received positions in settlement committee formed after the attacks, but also rewarded with cash from the ANC.

Following this logic, police would continue to target KRDC members, arresting 13 in total and charging them with murder and aggravated assault. At each of their bail hearings, the local ANC officials have mobilized busloads of their members, who physically threatening AbM’s supporters and demand that the ‘Kennedy Road 13’ not get bail. For more than two months, the ‘13’ had their bail hearing postponed for lack of evidence. It was only after, the Bishop of Rubin Phillip of the local Anglican diocese and other church leaders denounced their continued detention as a “complete travesty of justice” that all but five were released from prison on bail. It was only on May 14th, roughly eight months since the arrest, that the court gave the case docket to the defense attorney for the accused, including the five members still in prison, political prisoners awaiting a political trial. The trail is set to begin on July 12, a day after the 2010 World Cup tournament ends in South Africa.

While ANC officials have sought to criminalize their actions, AbM has consistently identified violence, assaults and harassment directed against them as politically motivated. This perspective has proved even more prescient as the ANC recent success in the April 2009 KwaZulu-Natal provincial elections have made it possible for local ANC officials to eliminate what they have long taken to be a potential political threat. With many of their leaders not prison still in hiding, AbM members can still not operate openly in Kennedy Road, but continues to organize in secret inside and meet every Sunday outside of it. AbM President S’bu Zikode, who was made homeless by the attacks on Kennedy Road, offered these thoughts during a university lecture entitled “Democracy on Brink of Collapse” given in October 2009: “To some leaders democracy means that they are the only ones who must exercise authority over others. For some government officials democracy means accepting anything that is said about ordinary men and women.”

“With the attack on Abahlali baseMjondolo in Kennedy Road,” he maintained, “we have now seen that this technocratic thinking will be supported with violence when ordinary men and women insist on their right to speak and to be heard on the matters that concern their daily lives. On the one side there is a consultant with a laptop. On the other side there is a drunk young man with a bush knife or a gun. As much as they might look very different they serve the same system – a system in which ordinary men and women must be good boys and girls and know that their place is not to think and speak for themselves.”

This need for ordinary men and women to think and speak for themselves is ever more pressing as South Africa prepares for the 2010 World Cup. Across the country, the government has spent millions constructing or refurbishing sports stadiums for the matches that will be played in June and July, while millions remain without access to adequate housing, potable water, and other basic services. Rather than fulfilling the promise of employment and equitable development, the World Cup has thus far provided a shot in the arm of city planners and real estate speculators who have sought to bar informal trading from Central Business Districts and clear ever-growing shack settlements to the peripheries of the city. Yet AbM has maintained its opposition to this version of democracy. In spite of a heavy police presence, several thousand members and their supporters marched in downtown Durban on March 22nd, calling not only for housing, but also human rights and justice. On May 14, as a delegation from the London Coalition Against Poverty delivered a message of solidarity to the South Africa High Commission, echoing AbM’s calls the outstanding charges against its members to be dropped and for an independent commission to investigate the attacks in Kennedy Road. Having already built up international solidarity through trips to Britain and the United States, AbM members traveled to Italy in late May to meet with other social movements, draw attention to the plight of African migrants workers in Italy, and to explain what the World Cup means for the poor in South Africa.

To make good on this goal, a branch of AbM in the Western Cape province (AbM WC) recently announced the launch of their ‘Right to the City’ campaign to develop a program of action for the World Cup. Already the province has a backlog of over 400,000 people in need of housing. In May 2009, members of this branch assisted backyard dwellers, those renting a shack on someone else’s property, to occupy prime government land in Cape Town. In response, the city’s Anti-Land Invasion police unit illegally evicted them from the land, confiscating their materials, and assaulted and arrested those it perceived to be leading the occupation. It was only after filing a court injunction against further evictions and launching other protests, including a road blockade, were those in need able to claim the land.

In the days leading up to the World Cup, AbM WC is once again demanding that the government provide quality houses for the poor inside the city, rather than tin shacks on the city’s outskirts, as has become the norm in the province’s capital of Cape Town. In addition to boycotting the World Cup, AbM WC has vowed to build shacks outside the city’s soccer stadium just before cup’s first match to draw the attention of the rest of country and the international community of needs of the poor. Unlike the attacks in Kennedy Road, how the government responds to the actions of South Africa’s militant poor will be on display for the world to see.

For more information, visit the websites of Abahlali baseMjondolo and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign. Together with the Rural Network and the Landless Peoples Movement, these organizations make up the Poor Peoples Alliance.

Sleep Dealer & Movimiento

2010-05-31T23:00:00.008-04:00

a still from Alex Rivera's Sleep Dealer

"Science fiction always tells outsider stories, with people coming into conflict with the system. But I wanted to create a science-fiction point of view that we've never seen before. We never see films about the future of Mumbai or Mexico City. Just yanking the point of view out of London, or New York, or Los Angeles and dropping it somewhere else is a powerful gesture." -Alex Rivera in Wired Magazine

Sleep Dealer is part of what I hope will be an upsurge of what we might call science fiction of the oppressed; an art form with quite old roots of course... in the US we might think of the the sci-fi writings of W.E.B. Du Bois at the turn of the last century or, more recently, Lizzie Borden's Born in Flames. Last year District 9 emerged from South Africa to huge commercial success and the Mother Continent is keeping it coming with Pumzi, a short from Kenya, debuting at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

I first met Alex Rivera while at Sundance in 2008. I was there as part of the team debuting Slingshot Hip Hop and Rivera was there to debut Sleep Dealer -> as the film's writer, director and editor, he took home two awards at the end of that week. And he has now generously lent us a copy of the film for a fundraiser for Movement for Justice in El Barrio's trip to Detroit for the US Social Forum later this month... I do hope you can make it!

Friday, June 11 at 6p in the LES

ROOFTOP PARTY & FILM FUNDRAISER
for MOVEMENT FOR JUSTICE IN EL BARRIO's
delegation to the US SOCIAL FORUM

beginning with
FOOD, DRINK and SPECIAL GUESTS

and closing with the groundbreaking work
of revolutionary third world sci-fi
SLEEP DEALER

Join us on the Bluestocking's Rooftop
85 Stanton St (and Orchard), buzz #6A
in Manhattan's Lower East Side

$10 door, food and drink by donation
(All funds raised during the party will go directly to support Movement for Justice in El Barrio's delegation to Detroit for the Second United States Social Forum)

More Info on the Film, the Movement and the Forum:

* Sleep Dealer
"Exuberantly entertaining, a dystopian fable of globalization disguised as a science-fiction adventure... Mr. Rivera — a brilliant young director — takes his audience into a future of “aqua-terrorism” and cyberlabor that I wish I could dismiss as implausible." A.O. Scott, New York Times

* Movement for Justice in El Barrio
"Best Power to the People Movement in NYC" -Village Voice
Check out an article on their recent Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement

* US Social Forum 2010
Another World is Possible, Another US is Necessary

From El Barrio to San Juan Copala

2010-05-04T13:27:00.011-04:00

UPDATE Jun 1: A caravan organized by the United for Human Rights Network, which is part of the Other Campaign, will be leaving from Mexico City to San Juan Copala on June 8.

A little over a week ago paramilitaries aligned with the ruling party in Oaxaca violently attacked a solidarity caravan that was attempting to break their blockade of the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala. Two were killed and many wounded. A national and international response quickly mobilized, and it will be crucial to build on this initial response in the days, weeks and months ahead. You can find the latest news at El Enemigo Comun, such as this call for a huge international solidarity campaign. There was a protest at the Mexican Consulate here in NYC last friday and here is a message from our compañer@s in East Harlem...

Message of Support and Denouncement
from El Barrio, New York, US

To our people of Mexico:
To the people of the World:
To the Other Campaign:
To the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca:
To Oaxacan Voices Building Autonomy and Liberty (VOCAL):
To The Center of Community Support Working United (CACTUS):
To Contralinea Magazine:
To the Zezta Internazional:

Accept this cordial greeting and very strong embrace on the part of Movement for Justice in El Barrio. We want to tell you that we, the simple and humble people of East Harlem, New York, are enraged about the repressive attacks that the compañer@s who were attacked had to face in Oaxaca, Mexico. It deeply fills us with pain and rage to know that the compañ@ros Beatríz Cariño Trujillo, from the Center of Community Support Working United (CACTUS) and Jyry Jaakkola, from the Organization Uusi Tuuli Ry (New Wind) were murdered and that compañer@s from the Caravan of Support and Solidarity with the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca were seriously injured.

We want to let you know, that as immigrants on the other side, we are aware of what happened and that we condemn the repression that they faced.

We also know about the repression that our sisters and brothers from the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca are facing and we want to let them know that they are not alone. Here in New York, we are also adherents of The Other Campaign and we admire your dignified struggle. We also condemn the repressive attacks from the state that they face.

From El Barrio, New York, we denounce and condemn all the acts that occurred on the 27th of April and what the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca has had to face. We directly blame the paramilitary group UBISORT and the Mexican government, and especially the corrupt governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz who utilizes paramilitary groups to attack our beloved people in struggle.

As part of The Other Campaign, we know that this most recent attack is part of the repression that our compatriots who fight for our beloved Mexico face. We also know that the capitalist system and the political class of Mexico with its three political parties PRI, PAN, and PRD do this with the objective of crushing our dignified struggle. We know very well that this repression is happening in different parts of Mexico including our dear Zapatista sisters and brothers in Chiapas and our dear compañ@ros from San Salvador Atenco. Which is the reason that we are sharing these words from the other side, to let you all know that from here in East Harlem, New York we are going to support you and we will do everything necessary so that the day of tomorrow together we can achieve our liberation.

Sisters and brothers you are not alone, we are with you and we unite in a cry of rebellion and dignified rage.

If they touch one of us, they touch all of us!

Stop the aggression towards the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala!

Stop the repression in Oaxaca and in all of Mexico!

Long live the dignified struggle of those from below in Oaxaca!

Long live the dignified struggle of The Other Campaign!

Sincerely,
Movement for Justice in El Barrio

3rd Anti-Displacement Encuentro in Harlem

2010-04-03T15:27:00.011-04:00

Over 40 organizations from around New York City, and the world, attended the Encuentro

Movement for Justice in El Barrio hosted a very inspirational gathering about a month ago that I report on here. The piece was originally written for Desinformémonos, which is a new publication begun just six months ago by Gloria Muñoz Ramírez and an international team of media workers. Muñoz was the journalist who, following the 1994 zapatista uprising, moved to Chiapas to begin reporting from inside rebel territory. Building out from her "Los de Abajo" column in Mexico's La Jornada, Desinformémonos brings us dispatches, from below and to the left, from around the world...

A Convergence of Dreams
The Third Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement
By RJ Maccani
Originally published in Spanish in Desinformémonos

English version appears in The Narco News Bulletin

The invitation reads, “We propose a coming together, a convergence, to which we can all bring: our histories, what makes us different, and our dreams.”

And in February, rebel voices from throughout the world came together in East Harlem, New York at the Third New York City Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement. Hosted by Movement for Justice in El Barrio (Movement), more than 200 people and 40 organizations joined the gathering. Organizers in South Africa and San Salvador Atenco, Mexico were even in attendance, participating via free video calls over the Internet.

The atmosphere of the five-hour gathering fluctuated between festive, somber and combative. There were many roses, much chanting, tostadas and, yes, as is tradition here, a neoliberal piñata for the kids to break at the end of the night.

Inspired by the Zapatista practice of “encuentro”, Movement, an organization of over 600 immigrant and low-income families in East Harlem, sought “…to create an open, safe, and lively space for dialogue, sharing and learning from people who are directly affected by displacement.”

Or as Javier Salamanca of Brooklyn, New York’s Sunset Park Alliance of Neighbors put it, “We are here to see what is going on in other parts of the city, country and world.”

New York City is Not for Sale!

Near the beginning of the gathering, Movement’s Oscar Dominguez announced, “In the past two Encuentros we’ve introduced ourselves and identified our common enemies, in this Encuentro we want to talk about how far we’ve come.”

Movement continues to celebrate the fall of Dawnay, Day Group, a multibillion dollar, London-based corporation that intended to evict tenants from 47 buildings in East Harlem and raise the rent ten times over. After organizing an international campaign against Dawnay, Day, and winning a landmark legal victory against the company, Movement has now been forced to challenge opportunism within their own neighborhood:

“We have been organizing for justice, in our buildings, since before Dawnay, Day became our landlord. In fact, as tenants, we marched, protested and took legal actions against our previous landlord Steve Kessner until he fled East Harlem… With the fall of real estate giant Dawnay, Day group, the opportunistic Mark-Viverito and her lackeys want to claim that they support Dawnay, Day tenants, and that they have all along. We, the tenants of Dawnay, Day buildings, know this is a sham… Movement for Justice in El Barrio will continue the struggle for dignity and against displacement with more strength and energy than ever before. We will not be fooled, we will not be bought and we will not be moved.”

According to Movement’s community newspaper, councilmember Mark-Viverito has both led and voted for numerous development plans throughout Harlem that will displace thousands of tenants, small businesses and workers in favor of luxury apartments, private university expansion, and multinational corporations.

The problem of opportunistic politicians and their patron groups interfering with authentic community organizations was a common theme throughout the Encuentro. As Nellie Bailey of Harlem Tenants Council noted in her presentation, “Three or four years ago we decided not to accept money from elected officials. Being free of their influence is great. Non-profit organizations are increasingly becoming tools of politicians and developers. They are there to blunt the organic militancy of our groups.”

Moving the horizon of the Encuentro to the condition of the city as a whole, Bailey remarked, “Mayor Bloomberg is the richest man in New York City and the 17th richest in the world. He wants a whiter, richer NYC and he will use every means possible. On the other hand, the collapse of the real estate industry has given us room to breathe. What opportunities does this provide us?”

Having suffered a loss against Mayor Bloomberg last September in a struggle to stop the rezoning of their neighborhood, Salamanca of the Sunset Park Alliance of Neighbors asked, “How do we regroup and not react to the timetable that city council creates?”

Bailey encouraged those in attendance to not become complacent in the face of seemingly progressive politicians, “The US government is in crisis and we can’t look at this problem of displacement in NYC in isolation from everything else. We can’t talk about housing without talking about jobs and we can’t talk about jobs without a basic understanding of the Military Industrial Complex. We suffer the same fate regardless of who is in government. With Obama, we got our first African American president, but that can’t meet our basic needs.”

Tom Kappner, a member of the Coalition to Preserve Community and someone who has been fighting the expansion of Columbia University in West Harlem for decades, stood up from the audience to remind everyone, “Every time we engage in struggle with them, we gain power; eventually a trickle becomes a torrent. It pays to remain faithful. If you get strong enough, the politicians come to you.”

From South Africa to San Salvador Atenco, Our Fight is Worldwide

The first group to join the Encuentro through a video call did not need to be reminded of the need to build popular power, or the dangers of putting too much hope in politicians.

In a clip from the forthcoming film, “Dear Mandela,” Mazwi Nzimande of the South African Shack Dwellers Movement, also known as Abahlali baseMjondolo, illustrated that, “There is a new apartheid system that is operating in South Africa, and that apartheid system is between the rich and the poor.”

Legally institutionalized segregation, known as apartheid, divided South African society into three classes of racial stratification: white, colored, and black, each with its own rights and restrictions, until 1990 when the discriminatory laws began to be dismantled. Riding a high tide of struggle and hope, Nelson Mandela became the first black president of the country in 1994 and the African National Congress (ANC) has been in power ever since. In the sixteen years that have followed, the number of South Africans living on less than $1 a day has doubled.

According to Shamita Naidoo, a member of Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), 2005 was the year that the people in South Africa began successfully uniting to fight back against the neoliberal policies of the ANC government. In September of last year the ANC attacked the Kennedy Road settlement, a hub of AbM organizing, killing three people and displacing over a thousand. Over the two weeks that followed, thirteen Abahlali supporters were arrested.

The attack appears to be in retaliation for AbM’s organizing within the “No Land! No House! No Vote!” campaign against party politics in the country as well as their ongoing struggle against the Slums Act, which allowed for the possibility of mass evictions without the possibility of suitable alternative accommodation. A month after the brutal attack, AbM won a victory in South Africa’s highest court that declared the Slums Act unconstitutional.

When Movimiento’s Juan Haro informed AbM members Mazwi Nzimande, Zodwa Nsiband and Mnikelo Ndabankul that 40 organizations were listening to their presentation, Nzimande replied, “You are contributing something to everyone throughout the African continent.”

Reflecting on the ANC’s brutal attack against them in September, Ndabankul noted, “A lot of branches are joining AbM. Their goal was to get rid of the organization, but more people have joined and we are more popular.”

The AbM members told of their political prisoners’ ongoing troubles as well as the government’s initiative to clear out the slums in time for the World Cup games coming to Cape Town this June and July. Nsiband requested that Encuentro attendees, “Continue to support, spread news and put pressure on the South African government. Most things happening are not exposed because of the democratic façade.”

Nzimande concluded their intervention by stating, “We cannot do more than to be there for each other. Let us build this global alliance.”

Across the ocean from AbM, back in the Americas, the people of San Salvador Atenco, Mexico have also been struggling against a government who has tried to hide its brutality behind the image of an emerging liberal democracy.

As Diana Vega from Movement recounted while introducing them, “Displacement is happening all over. There is a group called the People’s Front in Defense of the Land (the Front). In 2002 they successfully defeated the Mexican government’s plans to kick them off of their land to build an airport. In 2006 they were attacked by the government and still have twelve political prisoners in jail today.”

In a video presentation in advance of their participation in the Encuentro, we watched footage of the Front’s groundbreaking victory in 2002, which set a precedent for social struggles throughout the country that the new Federal government could be defeated. We also saw the 2006 invasion of their community by 3,000 municipal, state and federal police, in which two boys were killed and two hundred people were imprisoned, most of whom were subjected to cruel tortures including the rape of 26 women.

Members of the Front were brought in through the video call in time to watch the portion of the presentation featuring footage of Movement’s peaceful occupation and shut down of the Mexican consulate in New York City less than a year ago.

Seeing the footage of Movement’s solidarity action for the first time, Trinidad Ramirez del Valle, a leader of the Front and wife of one of their twelve political prisoners, declared, “Distance, barriers cannot keep us from fighting back against so much injustice.”

Following an update on the Campaign For Freedom and Justice for Atenco, which completed its 12 prisoners/12 States tour involving “over 130 organizations of Mexican civil society in over 100 political actions, marches and meetings” in December and just gained the support of 11 Nobel Prize winners, Ramirez del Valle asked those in attendance to, “Send letters, support our actions and denounce what is happening.”

Another member of the Front added, “In addition to our political prisoners and the heavy repression, the government is launching an environmental project in order to take land and continue with the airport project. We continue informing people of the true intentions of the government.”

A third member, Marta Pérez, directly addressed the conditions of organizing in the US, “We know you are also rebellious in a country where the power of Empire is very great. We are certain that we are going to win in Mexico, in the United States and the world because of people like you.”

Haiti, a Rebel Country

One of the last voices to address the Encuentro was that of Dahoud Andre. A Haitian organizer with Lakou New York, Andre had just returned from his shaken homeland.

Not unlike New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, where elites demolished public housing, privatized public services and drove the black population of the city down to a fraction of its previous numbers, Haiti has become the site of a man-made disaster in the wake of the earthquake.

As Andre reported, “The US military took over the Haitian airport and would not allow aid to come in. We collaborated with the Movement of Dominican and Haitian Women to bring the aid in through the Dominican Republican and over the border to Haiti.”

In words that echoed sentiments heard throughout the Encuentro, he urged participants to, “Support local community groups instead of the larger groups, such as the Red Cross or the Clinton Bush Fund. These are the people responsible for destruction in Atenco, Haiti and Harlem. They will never do the right thing.”

Andre pointed out, “Almost two months after the earthquake the tragedy continues even though it’s not in the media. The biggest problem is shelter: 1.5 million people have lost their homes and are living in make-shift tents,” before reminding the crowd with a fitting close to the Encuentro, “Haiti is a rebel country. In 1804, the enslaved community militarily defeated their oppressors. We’ve supported liberation movements around the world. The US did not recognize us until 1865 and has never forgiven Haiti for what happened in 1804. We don’t expect friendship from our enemies, we expect it from you.”

Shackdwellers on 'Right to the City'

2010-03-18T07:50:00.004-04:00

Trailer for the forthcoming film, "Dear Mandela"

Abahlali baseMjondolo, the South African shackdwellers' movement, was featured here shortly after being brutally attacked by the ANC government this past September. They released a statement earlier this month,The Third Force is Gathering its Strength, which is very much worth reading if you are interested in catching up on where they are at today. They also participated in Movement for Justice in El Barrio's Third Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement at the end of last month, which I'll have an article out for in the next issue of Desinformémonos. In the meantime here is a powerful collective statement they've just released today...

The High Cost of the Right to the City
Notes from a meeting of Abahlali baseMjondolo in preparation for the World Urban Forum (WUF): “The Right to the City”
March 2010

It is our usual practice when we send delegates to other people's meetings that we get together as a movement and discuss our collective view so that our delegates can take a mandate that is based on our 'home-made' politics. In this case there will be chances for our comrades to connect with other movements from around the world as well, so it is all the more important to be clear on our own home-cooked politics of Abahlalism – our 'living politics'.

Our movement's 'living politics' is the politics of the daily life and thinking of shackdwellers in South Africa who fight for truth and for justice. It is quite simply living out in the real world the practical meaning of the basic idea that 'everybody counts'. In our discussion we think through the connections between our 'living politics' and the theme of the WUF: 'the Right to the City'. If 'everyone counts', then surely there should be a right to the city! In fact, that theme sounds very much like a slogan of people's struggles for justice in cities around the world - but we know that the slogans of people's struggles often get taken and tamed by the powerful and rich; and we know that when that happens, the real politics at the heart of the struggles is usually lost. Some of the ways that the militant slogan of the 'right to the city' can get taken and tamed are when:

it can be reduced to a 'technical' issue of working out how the state system can 'deliver' services and amenities to the people;
it can be turned into a legalistic issue of 'human rights' fought over in the courts of law between lawyers;
it presents the only possible solutions in terms of 'participation' in 'good governance' as defined by the power-players in the system of the state and the political parties.

In our own struggles as Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) we have taken up all of these avenues and issues to fight for justice for shack-dwellers – but our living politics and our total struggle does not start and end in these limited definitions and confined spaces.

In the systems of the government and the political parties it happens again and again that the things the people have fought hard for are taken by those who claim to be leaders and given back to the people as 'delivery'. The people have their muscles and their thinking – but they do not have control over the money and resources like government and parties have. The politicians, and especially the local councillors, use this power and then claim that they were the ones who worked so hard to achieve these things! The systems of municipalities and councillors are against our living politics. They are an oppressive burden on us, keeping us down. No-matter how we try to deal with them, they know they have certain kinds of power and resources to take our issues and 'deliver' to the communities. When they do this, they even make us look like we who struggle are actually working for the Councillors! We know that the Councillors in the local governments and municipalities come from the political parties. That means that they will always try to do their homework and find out what the people at the grassroots are struggling for because they will want to come with a strong agenda for the Party to look like they are the ones who can 'deliver' what the people want. As deployees of the political parties, they are intent on crushing us politically and taking our issues over to their agenda. This is a huge challenge, and we must and we will fight harder against it because we know that Municipalities are a problem – and that the solution is in the struggles of the people, with their muscles and their thinking.

It is a kind of theft – to take away the valuable things of the people and to put them to work in a system that is against the people but in favour of the powerful and the rich. Not only the municipalities and the politicians but also many of the NGOs and 'civil society' structures and activists are guilty of playing a part in this ongoing theft against the people. It can make you feel like your struggle was useless. You fight for justice – for equality and for the world to be shared - and you end up with the promise of ‘service delivery’.

Against this theft and oppression, it is important that our struggle remains always our own and that we hold on to our autonomy. When we look at the official letters from the WUF we see that the government of Brazil and its President Lula is also inviting and hosting us – this is a surprise for us as a movement. We know that some of the movements there get funding from the government. For us, this should be debated and it makes us wonder what is the motive for having this event in Brazil. The poor people’s movements in Brazil are very strong in rural areas and in the cities. They occupy land and city buildings to appropriate housing and shelter for the poor. But then some of them also get funding from the government! Is the agenda behind this WUF to push the idea that government and the social movements can or must work together? For us as Abahlali, although we are not aiming to overthrow our government, it is very clear that we have different ideas from the government. Our government gives us a very hard time and we are in conflict with them. So is there really such a big difference between our government in South Africa and the government of Brazil? What we do know is that almost all politicians claim to speak for the poor, claim to be concerned about the poor. So invitations like these are really because they like our tears. When they can show our tears to the world, they can carry on with their plans and carry on saying that the tears of the poor justify their plans. We don't trust that government of Brazil, nor our government in South Africa, nor any other government. We remember that Presidents Lula and Zuma met each other and agreed that their plans were just the same. Anyway, going to the WUF is more important as a chance to meet and talk with other movements of poor people from cities around the world and to strengthen each other's struggles.

The Department of Human Settlements from our government will also be at the WUF and presenting some papers - but we will be there too and we will tell a different story. The Department will pick and choose what they present about the situation of land and housing in our cities. They will display to the world the good things they can show to create the impression that South Africa is a great place to live. Our task is to tell the truth against this lie.

Truthfully speaking, is there any 'right to the city'? Is the life we are living really giving us a 'right to the city'? If there is a real 'right to the city', why are were facing evictions on such a massive scale?; why must we beg to the courts for our rights?; why are our rights to organise, speak and march so violently repressed?

No, if there is a 'right to the city', it is a very difficult right to actually get. And it is we, the poor who struggle for it, who are paying the price for this right – and it is a very high price to pay to access any meaningful and broader idea of our right to the city. Just look at the cost of the attacks on our movement in Kennedy Road last year. The price is still being paid by people who have been made homeless refugees in their own country, and by the comrades still being held in prison without trial since those attacks. The world must see and hear from us what the price of the fight for a real right to the city is. The world must know that those who voice out the truth are attacked, silenced, slandered, threatened and imprisoned. The world must know that there is no real difference between the apartheid government and this one we have now.

Mega-events to entertain the elites like the FIFA World Cup also show clearly that for the poor, there are no real rights to the city. To put on their games in the way the rich want them, means that poor people have to be swept away, and poor traders forced off the pavement - all this simply to make sure that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We see the same things when we look at the growing number of golf-courses and golf-estates that are mushrooming. Poor people are squashed together in crowded settlements or are without housing, and some are forced out of their places to make way for these elite play areas. In the world as it is now, what counts is not that everyone is a person – what counts is whether you have money. In our cities, the powerful and rich elites chase their dream of a 'world class city', and in their 'world class city' what counts is money. For the right to the city to be real what will have to count will be people and not money.

If the right to the city has such a high price, is there any hope then? Yes – in the movements of the poor that are organising; in the work of our delegation that will go to Brazil; in all of our work to really transform the world as it is. Even through the work of our shack dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, we have won important victories – like defeating the Slums Act in the Constitutional Court. But since that victory, the attacks against us have shown that we have to carry on, we have to organise and build the movement even more, and we have to work twice as hard as ever before. There is really no such thing as a 'right' that can be given to you by a government or NGO. As the poor we have to organise ourselves to increase our power and to decrease the power of the rich and the politicians. The only way to succeed in making the right to the city a living reality for everyone instead of a slogan which repressive governments can hide behind is to democratise our cities from below.

East Harlem and Atenco

2010-03-05T15:55:00.002-05:00

Movement for Justice in El Barrio's Press Conference at the Allied Media Conference with Atenco's People's Front in Defense of the Land over the Internet

What Does it Mean to be Compañeros?

An Other Mexico, and World, is Under Construction between San Salvador Atenco and East Harlem
By RJ Maccani
Originally appeared on The Narco News Bulletin (February 26, 2010)
en español aqui

“Who can imprison the fury of a volcano, the silence of centuries that explodes in rage and pain?” – Ignacio “Nacho” del Valle, Mexican political prisoner sentenced to 112 years

For Mexico, 2010 commemorates 200 years since the War of Independence and 100 since the Mexican Revolution. But as Fernando Amezcua puts it, “Little or nothing remains to celebrate.” Amezcua was one of the 44,000 members of the Mexican Electric Workers Union (SME in its Spanish initials) who were put out of work when the current president, Felipe Calderón, issued an executive order in October that shut down the government-owned electric company, Luz y Fuerza del Centro, and sought to break one of Mexico’s oldest, largest and most combative unions. Amezcua continues on as SME’s “Secretary of the Exterior” and I met him just two weeks ago while studying on the Yucatán Peninsula with the 2010 School of Authentic Journalism. As he puts it in SME’s “Plan of the Insurgents”:

The Independence from Spain that two centuries ago cost so much of the first Mexicans’ blood (as always, above all that of the most dispossessed, of the indigenous, campesinos, craftsmen); the resistance against the US and French interventions, the nationalizations of the 20th Century such as petroleum and electricity, have been converted into a new large-scale national dependency on foreign powers, the sacking of our natural resources, and exploitation at the service of the big transnational corporations and international banks.

With this we are reminded that, since the founding of the country, a war has raged over two very different visions of Mexico. And in this symbolic year there is a gaping wound from this war that will be sewn shut, or torn ever wider. This wound is known as the case of Atenco.

The Land Belongs to Those Who Work It

Less than eight years ago the people of San Salvador Atenco and other rural municipalities on the outskirts of Mexico City defeated the most important project of then-President Vicente Fox’s administration, the construction of the International Airport of Mexico City. It was an epic, ten-month battle between communal farmers “in defense of [their] mother earth” and a government intent on carrying out the development plans of national and international businessmen. It took on an even greater importance as the country was just coming out of over 70 years of one-party rule under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and the new government, headed by the candidate of the National Action Party (PAN), was seeking to dispossess the campesinos even while it established this image of Mexico as an emerging liberal democracy.

The battle’s conclusion set a precedent for every other struggle in the country. In a public letter from Atenco’s People’s Front in Defense of the Land (the Frente) to the Zapatistas, they recounted, “It was then that we understood our role in history, we understood that things are not this way because someone decides, but that we too can decide what to do when faced with a decision from the powerful. When we prevailed in July and August of 2002 we confirmed what we already knew: “The government can be beaten.”

And just like their close allies, the Zapatistas, had done throughout Chiapas, they declared Atenco to be an autonomous municipality. Having kicked out their corrupt mayor as well as the police through the course of their struggle, they discovered that by making decisions in public assembly and organizing their own, community-based responses to violence in the town they achieved a level of democracy and safety well beyond what took place under the political parties.

Indeed, the struggle of Atenco was deeply inspired by the Ya Basta (“Enough Already”) of the Zapatistas of Chiapas who on January 1st, 1994 rose up in arms to win a free and democratic government for Mexico and realize the demands of the Mexican Revolution: work, land, housing, food, health care, education, independence, freedom, democracy, justice and peace. They did not achieve these objectives in that uprising, but the Zapatistas did succeed in inspiring millions throughout Mexico and the world. Thanks to their years of preparation, and the mobilization of their newfound supporters, the Zapatistas survived the government’s counterattack in those first days of 1994. In the years since then, they have peacefully constructed their own resolution to those revolutionary demands. In the over 1,100 Zapatista communities, which are grouped into 29 autonomous municipalities and five regions known as “caracoles,” over 200,000 of Mexico’s most downtrodden are leading the construction of their own political and judicial structures and educational, health, communication and economic development programs, and they are doing so while being subjected to low-intensity warfare, being surrounded by 50 to 60 thousand troops—roughly one third to one fourth of the Mexican military.

And so when the Zapatistas released their Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle in 2005, and began making preparations to defy arrest warrants and death threats in order to leave their autonomous territories and join with “the humble and simple people who struggle” in Mexico and throughout the world, the people of Atenco were already with them. That August and September, Ignacio “Nacho” del Valle, one of the great strategists and organizers of the battles of Atenco, and other members of the Frente attended in Chiapas to form the national initiative of the Sixth Declaration known as the “Other Campaign.”

Within this new struggle, the Zapatistas made it clear that they did not intend to lead, but rather to serve as facilitators of its creation and defenders of its core principals. Each adherent, be they a large organization or a single individual, was encouraged to define and defend their own place in the Other Campaign; To become like an embroidery, as Zapatista spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos put it, “where each color and each shape has its place; there is no homogeneity, nor is there hegemony.”

As the first phase of their participation in building the Other Campaign, the Zapatistas sent Subcomandante Marcos on what they planned would be a six-month listening tour throughout all of Mexico. His tour began on January 1st, 2006, and was to coincide with the final six months of Mexico’s presidential election cycle and be followed, after the elections, by a delegation of indigenous Zapatista comandantes who would make longer visits to each part of the country beginning in September of that year.

An Injury to One is An Injury to All

From the beginning, adherents to the Other Campaign knew there would be repression. They were, after all, seeking to build a national force organized against the entirety of Mexico’s political class, including the self-described “center-left” Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and its presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who was favored to win in the July elections. Motivation for this grew both from the many experiences of corruption and betrayal at the hands of the PRD, as well as AMLO’s stated commitment to continue the neoliberal economic policies of his would-be predecessors.

By mid-February of 2006, over 1,000 political organizations of the left, indigenous groups and organizations, social, non-governmental and artistic organizations and collectives had publicly joined the Other Campaign. It was also at this time that human rights groups were already denouncing a nation-wide rise in actions of intimidation and political persecution against its members. Nevertheless by the time Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos, in his civilian role as “Delegate Zero,” rolled into Mexico City, he was greatly emboldened by what he’d experienced in his tour of Mexico’s southern states.

Speaking in front of the US Embassy to over 40,000 people during May Day celebrations, Marcos declared that the civil and peaceful uprising that the Other Campaign was building was going to “overthrow the bad governments… expel from our land the rich, who have turned not just people into merchandise but also our land, our water, our forests, our biodiversity, our history and our culture.” Members of Atenco’s Frente were serving as Marcos’ security detail during this historic visit to Mexico City. Just two days after this speech, they would also be the target of the Mexican government’s most brutal attack against civilians in recent memory.

On May 3rd, 2006, flower vendors from Texcoco, were attacked by police who sought to prevent them from setting up their stalls outside a local market, on a building site that was to become a new Wal- Mart shopping mall. The People’s Front in Defense of the Land, from Atenco, mobilized to support their compañeros from Texcoco. Following this initial conflict, 3,000 municipal, state and federal police, each under the control of one of the three major political parties (the PRD, PRI and PAN, respectively) violently raided the municipality of Atenco. It was an attack by the political class against the Other Campaign and a brutal act of revenge by the outgoing president against the town that had stood in the way of his great international airport project. Over two hundred people were imprisoned, most of whom were subjected to cruel tortures including the rape of 26 women. Mexico’s commercial media seized on the few images of protestor violence to justify and encourage the repression. The police killed a young boy, Javier Cortés Santiago, and a student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Alexis Benhumea Hernández.

Citing the Other Campaign’s commitment that “an injury to one is an injury to all,” Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos suspended his tour of the country to help mobilize the rest of the national and international network in support of Atenco. By the end of the month, adherents from all 31 States and Mexico City, as well as Mexicans “on the other side” (of the border) had organized and demonstrated multiple times in solidarity with Atenco. Furthermore, at least 124 actions in 52 cities in 24 countries around the world had also taken place.

A Common Enemy

One such organization that began mobilizing then was Movement for Justice in El Barrio (Movimiento). Movimiento is an organization of immigrants, the majority of whom are Mexican, and low-income people of color, in New York City’s East Harlem. I caught up with Movimiento’s spokesperson, Oscar Dominguez, recently to discuss their relationship with the Frente and Atenco over the past almost four years. Like most members of Movimiento, Dominguez had just gotten off of a twelve-hour shift working in Manhattan’s service industry when we met. He began by identifying their common struggle and common enemy:

We, from New York, had begun organizing ourselves for a dignified life and so that we would not be displaced from our homes, and saw that our problems were caused by the capitalists, the rich, the bad governments. And then we saw them [Atenco], and their struggle to stay on their land, the place where they live and their culture, what they are as communities. Thus we saw that in different places, different countries, our struggle is to live a dignified life. And for them the capitalists wish to kick them off of their land… Us here in New York, them in San Salvador Atenco, we are waging separate struggles but against the same thing. The problems that we have are caused by the same people, by capitalism.

Dominguez recounted how they first organized a protest in front of the Mexican consulate in NYC immediately following the attacks of May 2006 to demand that the Mexican government respect Atenco and to put them on alert that people here were watching what was happening. Movimiento also realized that the mass media from Mexico was being reproduced in their local media. The message their neighbors were getting was that “Atenco was a small group of troublemakers who were trying to impede the progress of the country because the airport was for the economic development of the whole country, not only the community, and this small group, with machetes in hand were impeding all of this.” The machetes, of course, are the Frente’s symbol of their struggle, their work in the fields, and their history. To combat the media disinformation, Movimiento created street theater, complete with props such as wooden prisons, which they took out to 116th between Lexington and Third Avenues in East Harlem.

Rough Road

And in this way, they began a compañerismo with Atenco’s struggle to free its prisoners that has endured a rough road in the intervening years. Shortly after the attack on Atenco in May 2006 came the June uprising in Oaxaca and the electoral fraud of the July elections. Some groups previously within the Other Campaign left around this time, as they believed its moment had past and that they would find more meaningful struggle in the Mexico City government-sponsored protests of the elections.

By the end of that tumultuous year, the six month commune in Oaxaca would be put down with even more force than the repression against Atenco, and the Other Campaign would find itself not as an independent force to the left of a “center-left” government led by the PRD and AMLO, but instead a highly visible target of the fraudulently-elected candidate of the PAN party, Felipe Calderón. And beyond that, the political class as a whole had shown that mutual corruption could translate into a closing of ranks, if only to stay propped up: The PAN provided support to the embattled PRI regime in Oaxaca in exchange for support in sustaining the presidential election fraud, and the PRD walked away with its own fraudulently won governorship in Chiapas.

Around this time, Atenco’s political prisoners had been whittled down to 31, although this included three of the People’s Front in Defense of the Land’s leaders, Ignacio del Valle, Héctor Galindo and Felipe Álvarez, who were being held in a maximum security prison. And those staffing the encampment outside of Molino de las Flores prison, where the majority of the prisoners were being held, were down to five people.

While attending the School of Authentic Journalism last month, I also had the opportunity to interview Fernando León. León is a student at UNAM who has been directly involved in the case of Atenco since 2006. He recounted the governmental context of those difficult early days:

The legitimacy of Calderón from the very beginning was so limited. He supposedly won the elections with less than 1 percent more votes than AMLO. Calderón’s legitimacy was destroyed. What was the way to counteract this illegitimacy? The supposed fight against narcotraffickers and the war on drugs. From here the figure of Calderón has been one of military authority in the streets fighting the supposed evil of Mexico.

And Calderón wasn’t without help in his efforts to militarize the country. Shortly after he assumed office, the US government cooked up what it would eventually dub the Mérida Initiative, a drug war support package a la Plan Colombia. And in the intervening years, with millions of US tax dollars in tow, extrajudicial executions and human rights abuse have skyrocketed, while drug seizures have fallen and the drug war has grown from a regional into a national problem.

From early on it became clear that the true target of Calderón’s war was not drugs, or narcotrafficking, but Mexico’s social movements, and the poor and working classes in general. Although fourteen other Zapatistas, all indigenous commanders, were able to leave Chiapas in March of 2007 to visit the northern states of Mexico, they were met with increasing harassment, and by September of that year, the Zapatistas announced that they would be ceasing these tours and visits of the Other Campaign due to the increasing repression against their communities in Chiapas. But even as much of the public momentum of the Other Campaign has faded, the work that began in that space continues.

In Spite of the Difficulties

Along with numerous national and international initiatives in Mexico, groups such as Movement for Justice in El Barrio have also found ways to advance their struggles “on the other side.” At the beginning of 2007 they successfully kicked out the largest landlord in East Harlem, Steven Kessner, whom the Village Voice had dubbed one of the city’s “10 worst landlords.” A year after this victory, Movimiento began building their own “International Campaign in Defense of El Barrio” to challenge the London-based firm Dawnay, Day Group that had just taken Kessner’s place. They were able to build a multi-national network of allies and supporters that supported them in eventually seeing the fall of Dawnay, Day in East Harlem in October of last year.

In spite of all the difficulties, in many ways the People’s Front in Defense of the Land of Atenco has only continued to build in strength. Narco News’ Kristin Bricker and a journalist from Radio Chapingo in Texcoco met with Maria del Carmen Perez Elizalde of the Frente near the end of last year to discuss the case of Atenco today. Just twelve prisoners remain in jail, although the prison sentences they have been given are almost unimaginable in Mexico:

To Felipe [Álvarez] and Héctor [Galindo] they have given a sentence of 67 years in prison and to Ignacio del Valle they have given a sentence of 112 years, more than a century. And to the other [9] compañeros, 35 years. How is it possible that they have given more than a century? So much time in prison, right? When according to the government it is fighting against the narcotraffickers and they are only giving them 3 years, 5 years, 6 years and these are sentences that they never complete.

Just this past December the Frente and their supporters completed their 12 prisoners/12 States tour in which they “involved over 130 organizations of Mexican civil society in over 100 political actions, marches and meetings.” The tour culminated in a massive concert in Atenco wherein they announced that the next phase of the Campaign for Freedom and Justice for Atenco “consists in removing our prisoners from jail once and for all.”

And the Frente and Movimiento have remained compañeros throughout these years. Just over a year ago, while delegates from Movimiento were attending the First World Festival of Dignified Rage in Mexico, members of the Frente invited them to visit Atenco. It was there that Movimiento was able to screen its video message to Atenco, which featured many of its members who could not make the journey. The Frente responded to Movimiento with a video message of its own. This creative way of crossing the border to speak with each other “face-to-face” has been essential not only to their growing relationship, but to the overall dynamic of their struggles. As Dominguez of Movimiento puts it:

In May of 2006, it was Vicente Fox who was in government but now it is Felipe Calderón and he continues with the same policy. So we took over the Mexican consulate here to demand the freedom of the prisoners of San Salvador Atenco. In the video message of San Salvador Atenco to us, they told us that it gave them more energy to know that us in New York were watching what is happening with them and that we are helping them in our form, our style, at our pace. It gave us certainty that our struggles in different places have encountered each other. It is how we continue struggling, with more energy and we are confident that in time we will succeed in defeating the enemy that we have in common, which is capitalism and the bad governments. That capitalism is not only in Mexico, not only in New York, it is in all parts of the world and that the bad governments are servants of capitalism.

As for President Calderón? Fernando León, organizer in the Campaign for Freedom and Justice for Atenco, points out that:

The costs of this [drug] war, and what this war has produced, has become so real for the people who are in these situations that [Calderón’s] legitimacy is again being interrogated. The popular cry today is for the military to return to their barracks and that the supposed strategy of Calderón against narcotraffickers is erroneous. Even people within his own party and cabinet say that this strategy is wrong. And so it has had a very big political cost for Calderón. If in the first year or two of his presidency he was situated as a strong figure of authority, this popularity is every day declining more. The military soldiers in the streets provoke the human rights violations. The military only sees an enemy as an enemy to be killed. They are trained in this way and you cannot just tell them to not commit human rights violations because this is their agenda. And this has, in one way or another, fallen into the lap of Felipe Calderón.

The War of Visions Rages On, Compañeros

Legitimate or not, Calderón is not for the moment the most central governmental actor in the case of Atenco’s 12 prisoners. The Supreme Court of Mexico is currently considering the justice of their imprisonment. For this pending decision, León has two predictions:

One is that they are allowed to leave this year thanks to an opinion of the Supreme Court. And the other has to do with the fact that the situation of the airport remains open. That the National Water Commission (CONAGUA) is buying land and the airport project was never dead. This would be the other possibility, that the prisoners are kept inside so that the People’s Front in Defense of the Land remains focused on them and they don’t have all the power necessary to focus on the airport project. Also, we are in the year 2010, which is so symbolic. And some believe nothing will happen, and others want it to not just be symbolic, and the federal government is preoccupied with this and if the prisoners are released the Front can rededicate itself to the struggle they have always been bringing. These are the two possibilities: that they leave, as they should have never been prisoners in the first place, and the other that the revenge of the federal government continues, and the abuses continue.

The war of visions for Mexico rages on. Soon enough it will be time for the Supreme Court to decide for one or the other. Perhaps after last year’s opinion to free those convicted of the 1997 paramilitary murder of 45 unarmed indigenous parishioners in the village of Acteal, Chiapas, the Court will want to add some “balance” to its ledger and close the case of Atenco with freedom for the prisoners. Or perhaps it will tear the wound, and the gap between these two Mexicos, ever larger by closing the legal route for their release.

No matter the outcome, it seems clear that the Frente has its eyes on the horizon, and the calendar. As Frente member Maria Perez Elizalde told Bricker, “What is needed now is for Mexico to wake up in time and this is the principle struggle of the People’s Front in Defense of the Land. Beyond the freedom of the prisoners, beyond the defense the land, a very concrete struggle of the People’s Front is to wake up our brothers and sisters to what is going on. So that we don’t exchange our freedom or land for a few pesos. For a few pesos that you have today but tomorrow are already gone.”

Movimiento and the Frente still continue to find new ways to be compañeros. The most recent was “a simultaneous press conference in Detroit we did through the Internet with the compas of Atenco,” which Dominguez described to me, “so that they could speak for themselves to the media-makers of the left who were gathered at the Allied Media Conference. It was an honor for us that they joined us in this press conference because their struggle is enormous compared to ours. It gave us confidence to create bridges of communication between different struggles in different countries. It was very moving for the members of Movimiento.”

This Sunday Movimiento will extend these “bridges of communication” even further when they host their Third Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement. They will be joined by other organizations fighting gentrification throughout New York City and the region and by many more. Haitian organizers who have just returned from their shaken homeland will share their experiences. The members of the Frente will be present again, as they were in Detroit, through a live video conference. This time they will also joined in this way by Abahlali baseMjondolo, the South African Shack Dwellers Movement. The nine political prisoners of Atenco who are being held in Molino de Flores prison in Texcoco have sent along a written message for the gathering. And surely the other three, Nacho, Hector and Felipe, leaders of the Frente held in the maximum security prison “El Altiplano,” will be present in the thoughts of many in attendance.

So, will Mexico be a country of compañeros, or Calderóns? An armored, open-pit mine and playground for the rich? Or a place where, as the Zapatistas say, everything is for everyone and many worlds fit? After all these years, the question has not yet been definitively answered; in 2010 these two Mexicos are in conflict, from East Harlem to Chiapas.

And how will we respond, dear readers? Will we be compañeros?

2010 Olympic Resistance

2010-02-02T00:01:00.002-05:00

photo from the first Gathering of the Indigenous Peoples of America

We ratify our rejection of holding the 2010 Winter Olympic Games on sacred land that was stolen from the native nations of the Turtle Nation with the goal of constructing ski slopes in Vancouver, Canada. -from The Vicam Declaration, issued at the close of the first Gathering of the Indigenous Peoples of America, which was convened by Mexico's Indigenous National Congress, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, and the Kumiai nation and held in Sonora, Mexico from October 11-14, 2007

Based on this call, the Olympic Resistance Network's organizing as natives and non-natives alike is largely being done under the slogan of "No Olympics on Stolen Native Land." Something to keep in mind as you hear and see more of the Olympics in the weeks ahead. Here's more info from the Network:

The 2010 Winter Olympics will take place in Vancouver & Whistler, on unceded Indigenous land, from February 12-28 2010. Far from being simply about sport, the history of the Olympics is one rooted in displacement, corporate greed, and repression. As Olympic promoters and sponsors seek to present their sanitized corporate brand image to the world, the real impacts of the Games are apparent to everyone:

Expansion of sport tourism on Indigenous lands
Increasing homelessness across the province and especially in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside
Misdirected public spending and debt totaling $6 billion while funding for the arts, educations, and health care are suffering cutbacks
Corporate bailouts and profits for companies with some of the worst social and environmental records
Threats to basic civil liberties and free speech
Union-busting and vulnerable working conditions for migrant labour
Unprecedented destruction of the environment
Unparalleled $1 billion police and security spending that is turning our city into a militarized zone.

Watch: Eight Reasons to Oppose the 2010 Winter Olympics

We are calling on all anti-capitalist, Indigenous, housing rights, labor, migrant justice, environmental, anti-war, community-loving, anti-poverty, civil libertarian, and anti-colonial activists to come together to confront this two-week circus and the oppression it represents. We are organizing towards a global anti-capitalist and anti-colonial convergence against the 2010 Olympic Games.

Anti-Olympic actions have already followed the Olympic Torch in cities as diverse as Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Roseau River Anishnabe First Nation, Six Nations, Onedia First Nations, Guelph, Toronto, London, Barrie, Kitchener, Stratford, Sept-Iles, Montreal, Kanahwake First Nations, Quebec City, Victoria, Comox Valley, Halifax, Ottawa, Kingston, and St. John's.

Even more protests and actions have taken place since the torch entered BC on Jan 21. There will be an Indigenous Peoples' Assembly from February 5th through 8th by the Neskonlith on their un-surrendered Secwepemc Nation terriory, and this wave of resistance will culminate in an Anti-Olympic Convergence from Feb 10-15 organized by the Olympic Resistance Network in Vancouver.

Invite to 3rd NYC Anti-Displacement Encuentro

2010-01-23T00:14:00.010-05:00

Movement for Justice in El Barrio

An echo that turns itself into many voices, into a network of voices that, before the deafness of power, opts to speak to itself, knowing itself to be one and many, acknowledging itself to be equal in its desire to listen and be listened to, recognizing itself as different in the tonalities and levels of voices forming it. A network of voices that resist the war that power wages on them. – Words of the Zapatistas at the “First Intercontinental Encuentro for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism.”

An invitation to: Members and families of organizations, community members, and people of good conscience, who are fighting against displacement in their communities across NYC.

From: Movement for Justice in El Barrio

Third NYC Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement

An Encuentro is a space for people to come together, it is a gathering. An Encuentro is not a meeting, a panel or a conference, it is a way of sharing developed by the Zapatistas as another form of doing politics: from below and to the left. It is a place where we can all speak, we will all listen, and we can all learn. It is a place where we can share the many different struggles that make us one.

EL BARRIO, NYC
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28TH, 4:00 PM

The rebels search each other out. They walk towards one another, breaking down fences, they find each other. — First Intercontinental Encuentro

The rebels have met. In our first and second Encuentros, rebels who are fighting for dignity and against displacement came together to voice their presence, their rage, their struggle and their dreams. We broke down the fences that power constructs to divide us, we listened to one another’s voices, and we learned from one another. Now the moment is different.

Around the city, the country, and the globe, capitalism is heaving and shaking. We see it showing thin cracks in its concrete walls. We see its self-destruction as it razes its smaller empires. We see it exploit the cynical opportunities it envisions in terrible natural and human disasters. We see its agents rush to the battlefield to crack down on communities rising up to build something different.We walk along a trembling fault line of resistance and oppression and construct a path towards a future with dignity. With the knowledge of other compañeros and compañeras in this struggle we have walked forward stronger and now we must find ways to support each other.

Here in East Harlem, the giant has fallen. Dawnay, Day Group bought up an empire of 47 buildings in El Barrio with the intention of displacing our community members from our homes and raising rents by ten-fold. They failed in their mission in the face of years of fierce organized resistance from the tenants of Dawnay, Day that form part of Movement for Justice in El Barrio. They fell victim to their own greed. Now they face foreclosure. Movement for Justice in El Barrio is building an alternative in the ruins.

Across Harlem, the three council members that represent East, Central and West Harlem, millionaire Melissa Mark-Viverito, Inez Dickens and Robert Jackson have time and again joined billionaire Mayor Bloomberg, as he holds on tightly to the reins of power, in planning, promoting, and approving plans that displace our communities.

As we struggle here, we do not forget our sisters and brothers resisting in the far corners of the world. Nor do we forget where we come from and that many of us have already experienced displacement from our homelands. We join the humble and simple people across the world in their resistance as we stand up and join the fight against a global capitalist system that has pushed us to this dignified rage.

In this Third NYC Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement we will hear directly from movements fighting against displacement from across the world:

We will share a special video message from the South African Shack Dwellers to the Third NYC Encuentro. The South African Shack Dwellers Movement is fighting against displacement under the banner of “Land & Housing in the City.” They are standing tall and fighting back against forced removal and continued state repression.

We will facilitate direct live participation from San Salvador Atenco, Mexico by the Peoples Front in Defense of the Land who will share about their organized creative resistance to protect their land and their culture and to free their political prisoners.

In Haiti, a natural disaster unfolds and amplifies into a man-made disaster from the roots of neoliberal capitalism and from new visions to regenerate its exploitation. We will hear from organized Haitians who have been fighting against displacement for years and will be returning to NYC from Haiti to report directly on the most recent devastation.

Local politicians use their power, influence and money to try to buy-off resistance and pacify dissent. There are those that choose to accept the money of the powerful and ride on the currents of their power. In this Encuentro, we seek to speak directly to those who have chosen to fight against displacement and for dignity from the ground up and who will not be swayed by the seduction of the powerful and their riches.

Power seeks to divide and marginalize us as people of color, as women, as transgender, gay and lesbian, as youth, as the elderly, as workers, as immigrants, as tenants. We must resist division. We must seek to come together.

In this Third Encuentro, we will premiere a documentary of our 2nd NYC Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement in which 38 groups came together to share their struggles.

Groups fighting against displacement across New York will share our struggles and use this gathering to find ways to mutually support each other. We will share whatever form of expression we choose, whether it be verbally, through song, poetry or rhyme, through a video, through artwork or however people can best express their struggle.

Please RSVP by Monday, February 15th!!
P.S. Children are especially invited to come break open the “Neoliberal” Piñata!

We will provide dinner, childcare and Spanish/English translation.
Please RSVP by February 15th with the number of adults and children that will be attending, their names and an address at which you would like to receive your tickets.

Once you have RSVP’d you will receive your tickets and more details on the Encuentro.

For more info or to RSVP please contact us at (212) 561-0555 or movementforjusticeinelbarrio@yahoo.com

Who we are:

We are Movement for Justice in El Barrio. We are a group of humble and simple people who fight for justice and for humanity. Movement for Justice in El Barrio is fighting against gentrification in El Barrio, a process that is better understood by we who are affected by it as the displacement of families from their homes for being of low income, immigrants and people of color.

We are part of the Zapatista initiated transnational movement called “The Other Campaign.” For Movement for Justice in El Barrio, the struggle for justice means fighting for the liberation of women, immigrants, lesbians, people of color, gays and the transgender community. We all share a common enemy and its called neoliberalism. Neoliberalism wishes to divide us and keep us from combining our forces. We will defeat this by continuing to unite all of our communities until we achieve true liberation for all.

Free Jamal Juma'

2010-01-10T15:56:00.023-05:00

Video from The Alternative Information Center

UPDATE Jan 13: Jamal Juma' has been released! The impressive support of international civil society has moved governments and used the media to an extent that made his imprisonment too uncomfortable. Now let's ensure that the campaign for the freedom of all anti-wall activists and Palestinian political prisoners continues to grow. We have to combine our energies to ensure that the root cause – the Wall – will be torn down and the occupation will be brought to an end.

...to the Zapatistas it looks like there's a professional army murdering a defenseless population. Who from below and to the left can remain silent? -Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos speaking about Gaza on January 4th, 2009 in Mexico at the World Festival of Dignified Rage

On December 15th, 2009, Jamal Juma’ became the highest profile arrestee in an intensifying campaign to squelch powerful grassroots mobilization against the Israeli Apartheid Wall and settlements. Juma' has been in prison since then, without charges, and will be making his next appearance in court on Tuesday. Please take action now to free him and others, such as Mohammad Othman and Abdallah Abu Rahma, who have been imprisoned in this latest wave of repression.

With these arrests, Israel aims to weaken Palestinian civil society and its influence on political decision making at the national and international level. This process clearly criminalizes the work of Palestinian human rights defenders and Palestinian civil disobedience. But we can seize the initiative, redirect the force of this attack and continue to isolate Israeli apartheid. We must remember that our strategic action is working. The most recent evidence for this comes from the warrants issued in London that are currently keeping Israeli officials, including former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, out of the UK for fear of being arrested for their participation in last year's atrocities in Gaza.

Stop the Wall is asking us to coordinate our actions with them to free Jamal Juma' and all the anti-Wall prisoners. Full details of how to be in touch with them and take action can be found here. They are calling on us to:

Organize petitions, demonstrations and letter writing and phone calling campaigns with friends, family and fellow members of organizations directed to our representatives at consular offices in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem/Ramallah as well as our nearest Israeli consulate.
Join their photo initiative
Bring this to the attention of local and national media outlets
Follow the online and social networking groups they've created to coordinate this struggle

Readers here at zapagringo.com will find much inspiration in Jamal Juma''s work. He has a powerful vision of collective struggle and liberation...

Juma' speaking in November 2006 on behalf of the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign:

We know that the Mexican Intifada continues and spreads to other states of the nation... The experience of these 60 years of resistance enable us to recognize our brothers in the Mexican indigenous communities who have resisted genocide for over 500 years. We salute the resistance of the people of Oaxaca against a corrupt puppet government and see in it a new point of reference for the struggle against imperialism.

In 2007, Juma' penned a piece for Left Turn Magazine illustrating how the movement they are building in Palestine is part of a much broader struggle:

But something is moving at an unexpected pace. People all over the world are starting to get an understanding of what is really happening in Palestine. Neither a “conflict” nor a “clash of civilizations”, it is about brutal apartheid and expulsion. This understanding is the fundamental basis on which the Palestinian United Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is built ... After 60 years of global support to our extinction, it is time to turn the tide ... Hundreds of organizations and initiatives are spreading among solidarity groups, churches, trade unions and political parties. This new global movement needs a strong foundation to be able to stand the attacks it has to face, but above all, in order to keep true to the principles of liberation, justice, and equality. We need to reach out to and join our efforts with all who are struggling against racism, war and global capital. The African Americans, indigenous peoples, immigrants, workers and farmers movements stand against the same oppressive and lethal mechanisms of power.

And just this past summer, Juma' helped host the first Indigenous Youth Delegation to Palestine. Jamal Juma' is a tireless fighter for freedom, justice and democracy, and it falls on all of us now to fight for him, and his fellow prisoners, and in doing so, to redirect the momentum of this attack back against those who stand in the way of liberation.

Internat'l Seminar of Reflection and Analysis

2009-12-29T13:32:00.015-05:00

Watch live streaming video of the 4-day event at seminariodereflexionanalisis

As we close out the Zeroes, I share with you a live video feed of "The International Seminar of Reflection and Analysis" taking place this December 30th through January 2nd in San Cristóbal del Las Casas, Chiapas at CIDECI-Unitierra (a sort of zapatista university).

This Seminar commemorates the publication of a book documenting "The First International Colloquium in Memory of Andrés Aubry... Planet Earth: Antisystemic Movements...." The Colloquium, held just over two years ago, featured interventions by a wide array of people including representatives from Vía Campesina and Brazil's MST, as well as Naomi Klein, Sylvia Marcos, Immanuel Wallerstein and a series by Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.

HAPPY NEW YEARS, COMPAS!
ON TO 2010!

Columbus Go Home!

2009-11-17T19:56:00.005-05:00

HILARIOUS (and, unfortunately, NECESSARY)... Much love to this guy for bringing some historical memory to an anti-immigrant rally!

I found this video at The Unapologetic Mexican and am excited to be joining Nezua for a week-and-a-half of hard labor at the 2010 School of Authentic Journalism. Check out the other 30 students, and almost 50 faculty, and please kick in some cash to build this people-power institution. We will be working hard not only to build skills and learn together, but also to deliver original reporting AND share the curriculum on-line through viral video. So make that tax-deductible donation at The Fund for Authentic Journalism and let's make history together!

Speaking of people power, check out the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign's US Housing and Human Rights Tour (full schedule). The AEC has joined with Abahlali baseMjondolo (see this blog's recent report) and others to form the Poor People's Alliance in South Africa. In their own words:

As coordinators of the anti-eviction campaign, we are not leaders in the traditional authoritarian sense. Instead, we are like a set of cutlery. We are the tools that are there to be used by poor communities fighting against the cruel and oppressive conditions of South African society. Power to the poor people!

If you are in NYC, I know that the AEC event at the Brecht Forum, "The Post Apartheid Moment: An Evening of Solidarity with the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign," will be the place to be on Thursday night - hope to see you there!

MJB Victory Against Dawnay, Day Group

2009-10-20T20:37:00.005-04:00

Here is the press release from Movement for Justice in El Barrio announcing final confirmation that Dawnay, Day Group is leaving East Harlem as well as the victory they've just won against them in court. Below that is an article en español from yesterday's El Diario...

For Immediate Release
Contact Juan Haro, (212) 561-0555

Most Powerful Landlord in East Harlem, Multi-National Dawnay, Day Group, Comes Crashing Down

October 14, 2009—In a battle of David and Goliath proportions, tenants and members of Movement for Justice in El Barrio fought back against the attempts of the multi-billion dollar London-based corporation Dawnay, Day Group to push low-income families from their homes.

Thousands of East Harlem tenants have just been notified that the 47 buildings they reside in have been seized, due to Dawnay, Day’s failure to pay its massive outstanding debts, and are now under receivership, completing the demise of this multi-national company, a powerful threat to the community of El Barrio.

The multinational corporation that had scooped up 47 buildings in East Harlem, controlling one of the largest private property collections in Manhattan and by far the largest in East Harlem, is going down. Worldwide, Dawnay, Day has fallen victim to its own greed and is selling off its properties to cover its debt.

The East Harlem community has outlasted the giant through a multi-pronged strategy of resistance. This news comes close on the heels of a ground breaking legal victory in a case filed by Movement for Justice in El Barrio concerning thousands of dollars in false charges that were tormenting low-income tenants. Through this case, Movement for Justice in El Barrio partnered with Manhattan Legal Services and NEDAP to employ the innovative use of consumer protection laws for the first time in the housing arena with great success. Members of Movement for Justice in El Barrio just signed a settlement that will benefit thousands of tenants by putting an end to the practice of charging tenants thousands of dollars in false and illegal charges, instituting a new 3% cap on late fees for all tenants, and the plaintiffs receiving monetary damages, among other victories.

When Dawnay, Day became the most powerful landlord in East Harlem with their immense purchase, they announced in an interview with the Times of London their plan to take advantage of lax tenant protection laws in NYC to raise rents by "tenfold", a massive rent hike that would only be possible by evicting the current low-income and immigrant families from their homes. Again, they made their intentions explicit when they launched their “Buy-back Program” and began pushing tenants to abandon their apartments for a lump sum of $10,000. They coupled what amounts to measly and misleading offers in today’s NYC rental market with severe harassment in the form of dangerous negligence to the physical conditions of the buildings and apartments and illegal efforts to collect fictitious debts. Movement for Justice in El Barrio fought back against their efforts by:

- Filing a groundbreaking legal suit and recently winning a major victory that challenged Dawnay, Day Group, for charging thousands of dollars in false fees to its tenants.

- Launching the “International Campaign in Defense of El Barrio” and traveling to London to organize action to take them on at their headquarters.

- Fighting back building by building to demand decent living conditions and halt illegal evictions and maintaining a sustained media campaign exposing Dawnay, Day’s harassment.

Movement for Justice in El Barrio will continue the struggle for dignity and against displacement with more strength and energy than ever before.

Dawnay Day tenants will be available to conduct media interviews.

To arrange interviews call Movement for Justice in El Barrio at 212-561-0555.

------------------

Casero negligente pierde viviendas
2009-10-19
El Diario NY

NUEVA YORK — Después de más de dos años de luchar contra el desalojo de sus viviendas contra la corporación londinense Dawnay, Day Group, dueña de 47 edificios en El Barrio los inquilinos recibieron recientemente una noticia que los alegró: por problemas financieros, este grupo dejó de pagar su hipoteca y los inmuebles han quedado bajo el control de la Corte Suprema de Nueva York.

Harvey Fishbein, designado por la Corte como Administrador legal de los edificios, informó a los inquilinos el 29 de septiembre pasado que Dawnay, Day Group no ha estado pagando su hipoteca, y los prestamistas—el Banco de Nueva York Mellon Trust y National Association— han comenzado un procedimiento legal para ejecutar la hipoteca. “He sido designado por la Corte no sólo para colectar el alquiler, sino también para ciertas responsabilidades de mantenimiento”, comunicó Fishbein.

De acuerdo con Juan Haro, del Movimiento por Justicia del Barrio, la noticia fue recibida con alegría por los inquilinos de Dawnay, Day Group, porque desde que esta corporación tomó posesión de los inmuebles, “empezó un plan bien agresivo para desalojar a los inquilinos, cobrándoles cargos falsos”.

Esta lucha, según Haro, llegó a los inquilinos a unirse, protestar e incluso demandar al casero en corte.

La noticia de la salida de El Barrio de Dawnay, Day Group se produce pocos días después de que los inquilinos ganaran una demanda contra el grupo por miles de dólares en cargos falsos a los inquilinos. Fue presentada por el Movimiento por Justicia del Barrio, en asociación con los Servicios Jurídicos de Manhattan, NEDAP, pero no bajo las leyes de Vivienda, sino bajo las leyes de Protección al Consumidor.

Los inquilinos denunciaron cargos en el alquiler por gastos en mantenimiento responsabilidad del casero. “Los inquilinos recibieron compensación monetaria al ganar la demanda y, entre otros beneficios, se estableció un tope de 3% de cargos por pagos atrasados en el alquiler”, dijo Haro.

Paula Serrano, quien reside con sus dos hijos pequeños en el 328 East de la calle 106, dijo que desde que Dawnay, Day Group tomó el edificio, empezó a recibir cargos falsos de $300 y $400 por supuestas reparaciones, y su balance llegó a $2,000. “Estoy muy contenta de que se haya ido Dawnay, Day Group, porque el plan de ellos era sacarnos de aquí”, dijo.

Los inquilinos esperan que los nuevos dueños se ajusten a la ley.

Llamadas a Dawnay, Day Group no fueron contestadas al cierre.