Zapatistas 'The Art that is neither seen nor heard'

THE ART THAT IS NEITHER SEEN NOR HEARD.

(Note: the following are the comments made by Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés to mark the conclusion of the Zapatista’s contribution to the CompArte, in the Caracol of Oventik, on July 29, 2016. The threat of rain and the pressure of time did not allow for the compañero to fully develop some of his points and there were others that he was unable to touch on at all. Here we present the original version that he was going to give. In his voice, our Zapatista word).

THE ZAPATISTA ARMY FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION

MEXICO.

July 29, 2016
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2016/08/08/the-art-that-is-neither-seen-nor-heard/

Artists of Mexico and the world:

Sisters, brothers, and hermanoas:

For us, Zapatistas, art is studied by creating many imaginations, reading the gaze, studying in listening, and practicing.

It is by putting it into practice, that is, by doing it, that you will begin to see the result of the science and the art of imagination – the art of creativity.

There is some science and art that is needed immediately, the kind that helps us imagine how to do it.

There can be medium term science and art, and there is long term science and art that improves over the course of time.

For example: To even make something tiny that will contribute to the new world requires that we involve ourselves profoundly in the science and art of imagination, in the gaze, in listening and in creativity, patience, and attention. It requires that we think about how to move forward while building and many other things that must be taken into account.

Because what we want, or what we think about, is a new world, a new system. We don’t want a copy of what we have, we don’t want to improve it a little bit. This is a problem, we say, because there is no book or manual that explains how to create this new world. This book or manual hasn’t been written yet, it is still in the heads of those with imagination, in the eyes that are ready to gaze at the new world that they want to see, in the ears that are attentive in order to hear the new world that they want.

This requires a lot of wisdom and intelligence, a good understanding of many words and thoughts.

We say that it works like this because this is how the development of our autonomy has been and will continue to be.

It was built by thousands of Zapatista men and women, with science and art, and for now it can be seen in the 5 zones of the caracoles.

The art that we are showing you, our compañeras and compañeros, had a crude birth, it emerged from the heads of those women and men who themselves decided how to present it to you, [it is] about how they have worked as Zapatistas and autonomous people, with their resistance and their rebellious ways.

The entire process was a chain of art – from the thinking about what they would present, whether it would be a dance number, song, poetry, sculpture, theater, or pottery, to the words, the ideas about how they would get from place to place, then where they were going to get the money for their rehearsal and performances, because they are collectives from the community, the region, the municipalities and the zone.

There were three rounds of selection. For the first round, the people got together in their regions; then the regions met as autonomous municipalities for the second selection; and the municipalities met in zones for the final round.

Their preparations took months.

For the communities of thousands of Zapatista men and women, it was another iteration of what we are, but in a different form, it didn’t happen through conversation or blah blah blah, but through the technique of Art, and everyone participated – children, teenagers, fathers, mothers, and grandparents.

In artistic form, in the art form of the Zapatista compañer@s, they were practicing their resistance and rebellion, their autonomous government of the Junta de Buen Gobierno, their MAREZ (Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities in Rebellion), their local authorities (comisariadas, comisariados, agentas, and agentes), their autonomous health systems, their autonomous education system, their autonomous radio stations, their 7 principles of lead by obeying in their new system of autonomous government, their democracy as communities, their justice, their freedom, their defense of mother earth, and their collective work on mother earth. This will all be the basis on which new generations of young women and young men will be formed, the basis for the Zapatista future.

This is what we presented to you, compañeras and compañeros of the national and international Sixth from Mexico and the world; only a small portion of the compañer@s that were going to participate actually participated. One day we will present the rest to you, but right now there isn’t time, because if we had all come, it would have taken over a month to do all of our presentations, and so that means that there is also an art and a science to how we planned to do a one-day presentation. Because the most marvelous of all of the arts is collective mutual support.

-*-

Compañeras and compañeros from the National and International Sixth.

Sisters and brothers of Mexico and the world.

The storm and the hydra of monstrous capitalism wants to prevent us from seeing one another, but through our great effort we are seeing one another here and now.

The compañeras and compañeros from the thousands of Zapatista bases of support for the Zapatista Army for National Liberation want to show you their art.

You have seen one part here and in other caracoles you could see other parts. Because more than two thousand artists have been selected and there were even more who didn’t come, not because they didn’t make it through the selection process, but because we didn’t have the money to transport thousands of compañera and compañero artists.

Our compañera and compañero artists aren’t professional artists, but rather their profession is what we call “Everythingologist [Todólogo]” because they are carpenters, masons, shop keepers, they work the land, are radio hosts, milicianos and milicianas, insurgentas and insurgents, autonomous authorities, teachers at the Zapatista little school, health and education promoters, and they still find the time to be artists.

They are true artists in the art of constructing a new system of governance, the autonomy where the people command and the government obeys.

It is an art that you can see, study, and that exists in practice, that you can know through its sharing.

But the compañeras and compañeros also make other art that you don’t know about, that isn’t disclosed in any press releases.

It is the art of solidarity, the support for the people who struggle.

Because the other art and science that the compañera and compañero Zapatista bases of support practice is their support for the struggle of the teachers movement.

You did not see this science and art, but the way it was delivered; the food support was like the art of a hornet’s nest, but there was also an art and science that preceded this.

This is what happened:

We realized that we needed to support this struggle by the teachers who are resisting the capitalist hydra and storm, which we have been talking about for a year.

So then we figured out how much support we were able to give. First we used our word to support them, to say that their struggle is a just one.

Then we tried to figure out how to support the resistance at the sites where they were putting up roadblocks and sit-ins and we realized that we could support them by providing food.

Then we assessed how much support we could send them, and first, how our compañeras and compañeros would respond if we supported them with food from the little that we have as a result of our collective labors.

We figured out how, for example, the food support could work—the delivery, the bags, and all of that. But what you don’t see is the organization of the food collection community by community, the division of how much each community was supposed to provide, figuring out how many tons they were going to be able to get together so that they could figure out how they were going to transport it. Then there was the timing, because the news was saying that the blockades were still there, and then that the teachers were going to take them down to avoid being forcefully evicted because what they were doing was really hurting the rich, and this put a lot of pressure on us because the food that we collected would spoil if there wasn’t any place to take it to.

They had meetings everywhere in order to come to an agreement, because all of the compañer@s said that the support that we needed to give to the teachers’ movement was just and necessary.

So they started to do the math (i.e division), the accounts as we say, say of how much each zone, MAREZ, region, and community was responsible for. There were a few zones where the commissions failed to meet their goal, they didn’t fail in a bad way, but in a good way, because they had reported that their commission would provided 2 tons of food and when the time came they actually provided 7 tons more than they had promised, which was the case with the Zapatista bases of support in the North Zone of Chiapas, from the caracol of Roberto Barrios. And so, well, resolving the problem was Art, because no one had even imagined that they could provide 9 tons. We only had a 3-ton truck.

The compañeras’ work is really art, because they were asked how long it will take them to have 100 thousand tostadas ready – how could they calculate that when the corn is still on the cob?

Well the compañeras responded that the tostadas would be ready on x day at x time. Because they know how many hours it takes to cook the corn, and how many tostadas you can get from a kilo of corn.

And the compañeras even add flavor to the tostadas, from a little bit of beans, and salt, because they know that the tostadas are to support the teachers at the sit-ins and in resistance.

And that is how they did it and now it is done, but you can’t see it because it is already in people’s stomachs, or it has become fertilizer because the companer@ teachers have already consumed it.

Collective work, the common, made it so that they could move things easily, from one hand to another, others moved things on horses, others by foot and on their back, others by car.

Thanks to the collective work of the compañeras and compañeros.

It was all a mathematic calculation, from beginning to end.

All of this, it is all an expenditure, and the great majority is from collective work, communities, regions, autonomous municipalities. It is the real fruit of our work as organized communities of men and women.

But you didn’t see any of this and you wouldn’t know about it if we didn’t tell you about it, and it’s all the work of our Zapatista compañera and compañero bases of support, in order to show that we care about a people who struggles with resistance.

Why do we do this? Well, because we know and understand what it is to resist in struggle and how much work it takes to maintain a struggle in resistance.

Figuring out how to provide this support is an art of imagination by the Zapatista communities.  The “resistance” of the compañeras and compañeros has gone on for 22 years, and that’s a lot of experience and is a great building block solidarity. It is the demonstration of collectivity. For 22 years we Zapatistas have been in resistance and rebellion against capitalism, and we’ve had, for 22 years, a new system of governing ourselves where the people command and the government obeys.

-*-

There are those who think that we should go out and struggle for the teachers. But if they think that way, then they haven’t understood anything at all. Because that would mean that that I want someone to come and struggle for me. We Zapatista men and women don’t ask for anyone to come and struggle for us. Each person must struggle, and we should mutually support one another, but that support cannot replace each person’s struggle. Whoever struggles has the right to decide the direction of their path and with whom they walk that path. If others insert themselves, then they are no longer supporting that struggle, but supplanting it. Support is respect, not trying to direct or command. Just as we have understood that no one is going to give us what we need to eat if we don’t work for it ourselves – it’s the same thing. No one is going to liberate us except for ourselves.

That is how we peoples of Mexico and the world organize ourselves, how we struggle in the world where we are in order to change it, as workers, teachers, peasants, all kinds of workers, we don’t hold out hope that someone is going to come and struggle for us.

This is how we already live, and they [the bad government] only come to try to manipulate us, to fool us and to do the all of the things they do to us.

-*-

Art, brothers and sisters, compañeras and compañeros, is very important, because it is what provides us with an illustration of something new in life, something that illustrates something very different in real life—it doesn’t lie.

Art is so powerful because it is already real life in the communities where the people command and the government obeys, thanks to the art of the imagination and the knowledge of how to create a new society, how to create a life in common. Our art shows that it is possible to create another form of governing, one that is totally different, that it is possible to create another life working in common to benefit the community itself.

This makes me think of the deceased Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, who often asked us questions when we were building a little house, there in the jungle, with Comandante Tacho. The deceased asked us, “These crossbeams, what are they for? Can you explain to me scientifically what they are for? And we were about to answer, when he hit us with another question, “Is it science, or is it custom?” Comandante Tacho and I looked at each other, and since he was in charge of the construction it was up to him to respond, “Well, I learned from my father, and my father learned from my grandfather, and so on,” said Comandante Tacho. The deceased responded, “Ah, well then it’s custom, and it’s not based on a scientific study.” So he explained to us why the sciences and the arts are so important. And now we are coming to understand this. But wait, I’ll tell you what the deceased scribbled down or wrote to us from the place where he now lives six feet under; we’re going to ask him to send it to us and we are going to publish it, those of us who are still alive here where he had been living before. So compañeras and compañeros, sisters and brothers. We Zapatistas think that now more than ever, we need ART, ORIGINARY PEOPLES, AND THE SCIENTISTS in order to give birth to a new world.

So compañera and compañero artists from the National and International Sixth, get involved in the work of art with a lot of enthusiasm.

Join us, brothers and sisters of Mexico and the world, in dreaming of an art where the people command, for their own good and the good of the people themselves.

Thank you,

From the mountains of Southeastern Mexico.

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.

Mexico, July 29, 2016.



Song, “The Capacity of Women”. Lyrics, music, and choreography from the young, female and musical Zapatista group “Dignity and Resistance,” bases of support from the Altos Zone of Chiapas. When they performed in Oventik, on June 29 in the afternoon, the sound system failed and it made them a little bit sad. And so on June 30, in CIDECI, SubMoy asked the compañero musicians Panteón Rococó and Oscar Chávez to stop for a minute and they gave up a few minutes of their time (Thank you Don Óscar, thank you Panteones). The compañeras were able to present what they had been preparing for more than 5 months. When they finished they reported back to SupMoy. “We’re back,” they said. SupMoy said, “How did it go?” and they said, “we won.” SupMoy didn’t say anything but he was definitely thinking,” “All in all, 500 years is a short time, but I never thought that I would get to hear this.”  They continued, “We felt a little bad because the people were asking for another. A lot of people were yelling ‘One more! One more!’ but we didn’t know another one. It took us a long time just to make this one. If they want another one, they are going to have to wait a another six months.” SubMoy asked, “And so what did you do?” “We left the stage quickly and hid ourselves among the compañeros.” That’s what they said and then they went to the dance floor for the Panteones’ ska.

.........
Dance number: “The Dance of the collective work of Maize.” Choreography by the Zapatista bases of support of the Altos Zone in Chiapas. This is the version that they presented during the selection process. For the presentation on July 29 in Oventik they added a few more things, as those who were there got to see. Maybe in the compa media they have a video of July 29 in Oventik.

...... Poetry: “When the Horizon looks to tomorrow.” Written by a young Zapatista base of support from the Altos Zone in Chiapas. This is the version that he presented in the selection process. When he presented it, he was told that there would be a lot of people there, but not to get nervous. “Keep your eyes on your notebook and don’t look up,” they recommended. He said that he wasn’t scared but he was confused about one thing. “What is it?” they asked him. He said, “I don’t know if you are supposed to say ‘poem’ or ‘poetry’. And so we ask you for a reply to his question.

Zapatistas 'The CompARTE Festival and Solidarity'

Weaving workshop Photo credits: Visit to Oventic

The CompARTE Festival and Solidarity

'Organize yourselves to celebrate humanity in the face of the machine'

The CompARTE Festival and Solidarity

July 2016
Translations

Compañeroas of the Sixth:

Artists from the five continents:

Teachers in Resistance:

As you know, we have decided to suspend our participation in the CompArte Festival. Of course, for those who know how to read carefully, we didn’t say that the festival itself was suspended. We merely indicated that we as Zapatistas would not be able to contribute. So if someone thought the former and decides not to participate, well then we apologize because we know you already took on expenses. No one should give orders to the Arts. If there is a synonym for freedom, perhaps the last bastion of humanity in the worst situations, it is the arts. We Zapatistas neither can nor should—nor has it even crossed our minds—to tell the workers of art and culture when they should create or not. Or worse, impose a topic on them and, using the originary peoples in rebellion as justification, drag out concepts of “cultural revolutions,” “realisms,” and other arbitrary notions that merely hide what is some kind of cop determining what is “good art” or not.

Zapatistas 'June's Lessons: Artists of Five Continents: Teachers in Rebellion'

Tens of thousands marched in Mexico City in June 2016 in support

of striking teachers in Oaxaca.

June’s Lessons

July, 2016

Compañeras, compañeros, compañeroas of the Sixth in Mexico and the World:

Artists of the five continents:

Teachers in rebellion:

We send you all [todos, todas, todoas] greetings, from us and the indigenous Zapatista communities. We are writing this letter to tell you about what we have seen and heard this past month of June and to let you know about a decision we Zapatistas have made. Here goes:

Lessons from Above

In just the last few weeks of June, we have been given a true educational seminar.

Once again, the character of the Mexican state has been laid bare: as soon as the capitalists snapped their fingers, regarding what is called the “Law 3 of 3,” the institutional powers scrambled to correct what didn’t please their masters. Not content merely with knowing that they rule, the great lords of money demonstrated, to anyone who wished to see, who really makes the decisions. A handful of masters, in luxury brand suits and ties, came out to the Ángel de la Independenciai and, to mock its meaning, gave what amounts to a class in modern politics.

“We rule,” they said without speaking, “and we do not like that law. We do not need to sacrifice lives, hold marches, or suffer blows, humiliation, or imprisonment. We don’t even need to show ourselves. If we do so now it is only to remind all of the politicians of their place, both those who are in office and those who aspire to be. And for the lumpen, well, this is just to remind them of the contempt we feel for them.” And then the system’s legal structure (and those who create, implement it, and enforce it) showed its true purpose: within just a few hours, the governmental “institutions” fell over themselves apologizing and trying to ease the anger of the gentlemen of money. Like overseers eager to serve their masters, the governing officials prostrated themselves and maneuvered to make the law appropriate to the system’s design. “We didn’t even read it,” the legislators murmured as they expressed reverence and made servile apologies to their masters.

But when the teachers in resistance and the communities, movements, organizations, and persons who support them demanded the repeal of the education reform (really just a presidential pre-campaign platform for Aurelio’s aspirations to be a police informant), the government and its masters declared that nothing (meaning, the use of force) was off the table in order to defend “the rule of law.” With a tone more hysterical than historical, they emphasized that the law would not be negotiated. And they made this declaration just a few hours after they bowed before the powers of money… to negotiate modification of a law.

They didn’t bother to insist on the arbitrary imposition of an education reform that they haven’t even read. One careful read would be enough to realize that it has nothing to do with education. It never ceases to be pathetic that the political class and the press that accompany them say that they are defending the institutions of law and justice as they shamelessly demonstrate the contrary.

In June, the lesson from above has been clear and cynical: in Mexico, capital rules and the government obeys.

Lessons from below

For their part, the teachers gathered under the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE), as well as the families and communities who support them, have also given classes in the streets, roads, and highways of Mexico below.

In just a few weeks, they have dismantled all of the staging put up by the political class over multiple years and with a lot of money, to disguise the new war of conquest, going under the name “Pact for Mexico,” which is encapsulated in the so-called “structural reforms.”

The dignified movement of teachers in resistance has also made evident the profound decomposition of the federal, state, and municipal governments. Governmental corruption, inefficiency, and clumsiness can no longer be hidden behind the makeup offered by the servile paid media and social networks, manipulated with the same lack of skill with which they govern.

In an attempt to manipulate the generalized social “bad mood” and try to redirect it toward the democratic teachers’ union, the governments and paid mass media mounted an impressive (and ineffective) campaign of slander and lies: the poor don’t have gasoline, beer, liquor, sweets, lollipops, sliced bread, or the ground-up corncobs they sell as “corn flour.” And it’s all the teachers’ fault. Not because they are resisting, but because they are not large property owners.

Here in Chiapas at least, the supposed shortage of gasoline was nothing but the shameless speculation of that sector’s businessmen who knew that the price would go up on Friday and as of Tuesday were circulating the rumor of scarcity on social media. Curiously, at the gas stations, there was only diesel, the price of which wasn’t supposed to go up. The workers said there was in fact fuel, but “the boss told us to ration it and later to put up signs that there wasn’t any. They also messed with the pumps, so that the liters weren’t really full liters, but less. But that happened before, even when there weren’t blockades.”

Similarly, the scarcity of food and perishable products only occurred in the big supermarkets. The neighborhood markets continued to offer fruits, vegetables corn, beans, rice, meat, and eggs without any rise in prices. It’s true that products like bottled soft drinks, cigarettes, beer, and liquor began to run out, in addition to what is commonly known as “junk food.”

The “third party interests” which the government is referring to when it talks about who is affected are none other than the interests of the big businesses of commercial capital.

As the governing officials and media and social network that accompany them were shouting their heads off about the teachers’ movement being only in the poorest states whose social backwardness is, of course, the CNTE’s fault, thousands of teachers in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon took the streets, not once but multiple times, of that former lair of national capital, demanding the education reform be repealed.

When the teachers in resistance decided to open the blockades for individual vehicles, public transportation, water trucks, and local traffic but not to big business, the overseers bellowed furiously, threatening and demanding that the commodities that feed big capital be allowed to pass through instead of the “rabble.”

And in the paid media: extensive coverage of the SEDENA airplanes, used to distribute Maseca (not corn), with which José Antonio Meade initiated his pre-campaign to replace Aurelio Nuño as presidential pre-candidate. At the same time they buried any news on the Hercules airplanes that transported anti-riot tanks and federal police troops to Chiapas and Oaxaca… and Guerrero… and Michoacán… and Tabasco… and Nuevo León? Oh the rebellious geography of the rebellion!

No. Those above are not interested in children’s education. Hell, they’re not even interested in the supposed education reform. Neither the lame policeman operating out of the Department of Public Education nor any of the legislators who voted for the reform have read it. And when the teachers insist that this or that article is harmful, those above turn nervously to their advisors and bodyguards, not only because they don’t know what those articles say, but because they don’t know what the word “harmful” means. The only thing that matters to them is to get into the line of succession, to see who will get the presidential nomination for the PRI or any of the other parties.

But despite threats, blows, prison, and the outrageous massacre in Nochixtlán, Oaxaca, the teachers resist. But now they are not alone.

While what was expected was that after being threatened, the number of people at the blockades and encampments would diminish, instead what happened was that… more teachers arrived… and people from all of the barrios, neighborhoods, villages, and communities!

That was how the teachers in rebellion and the people who support them concluded their free public seminar this month of June, giving us the most comprehensive lesson: in Mexico capital rules and the government obeys… but the people rebel.

The most important thing

When we Zapatistas say that we respect a movement, that’s what we mean: we respect it. That means that we don’t meddle in their schedules and ways of doing things, in their organizational structure, in their decisions, strategies, tactics, alliances, and decisions. All of that corresponds to the discernment and decision of those who make up that movement.

Whether they vote or not, ally with political parties or not, dialogue or not, negotiate or not, come to an agreement or not, whether they are believers or atheists, skinny or fat, tall or short, pretty or ugly, mestizo or indigenous, we support them because their struggle is just. And our support, though perhaps small, is unconditional. That is, we don’t expect anything in return.

Unfortunately, because of our essence as the EZLN, most of the time our support can’t go beyond our words, and more than a few times has to be silent. With regard to the teachers in resistance—they have enough accusations and pressures already leveraged against them to add on that they are being “managed” or “infiltrated” by political-military organizations.

So let it be known across the entire political spectrum: everything achieved by the teachers in resistance is and has been their own effort, their decision, and their perseverance. It is the teachers themselves who have explained their struggle, who have spoken in community assemblies, in barrios and neighborhoods, and who have been able to convince. In contrast to other mobilizations, the teachers turned to look below, to direct their gaze, ear, and word below. It is their resistance that has convoked such a broad range of support. At least that is the case in Chiapas. Instead of slander or conspiracy theories, the government intelligence (ha!) services, as well as the media that feed off of them, should take lessons from the teachers.

Our economic limitations (product of our rebellious resistance, not of teachers’ blockades), impedes us, at this point, from sending something substantial (for example, corn and not Maseca) to the teachers and the communities that support them to alleviate the difficult conditions in which they resist all of the wars waged against them.

We also can’t hold large mobilizations because we don’t have institutional economic subsidies, and our every movement, however minimal or symbolic, must be funded by our very limited economy.

Yes, we know. You can chant to us “we don’t see your support.” But we Zapatistas aren’t trying to be seen, or trying to get votes, or affiliations, or trying to get on the list of acronyms that tend to become “fronts” or “broad fronts,” nor are we trying to get paid in one form or another. We also do not demand or expect “reciprocity.”

We Zapatistas only want the teachers to know that we respect them, that we admire them, and that we are attentive and taking notes on the lessons they are giving.

We think resistance should continue. And today, in this geography and calendar, resistance carries the face, the determination, and the dignity of the teachers in rebellion.

To say it more clearly: for us Zapatistas, the most important thing on this calendar and in the very limited geography from which we resist and struggle, is the struggle of the democratic teachers’ union.

The lesson from the originary peoples

Let’s hope that dialogue is held with respect and truth, and not as a simulation that hides preparations for a new wave of repression. Let’s hope that dialogue takes place without the bravado and table pounding so characteristic of he who thinks he rules.

Let’s hope that the governing class, big capital, and the media that accompany and serve them stop playing with matches, lighting them and throwing them onto a prairie it has dried up with its own policies, corruption, and lies.

Let’s hope that those above stop thinking that the storm will put out the fire that they, and no one else, try to stoke. Let’s hope that they manage to see that the storm will end up drowning them too and that then there will be no columnist of the written or electronic press, no hashtag or social network, no television or radio program that can save them.

Let’s hope so, but in our experience, no, that will not happen.

The originary peoples, compañeros and brothers of the National Indigenous Congress have said clearly that we are speaking from within the storm.

“From within the storm,” these were the words chosen by our sisters and brothers in pain, rage, rebellion, and resistance who go under the name National Indigenous Congress (CNI). With just those three words, the CNI gave a lesson on the calendars and geographies ignored by social networks, by the paid and free press, and by the progressive intellectual class. We Zapatistas felt that those words were also ours, and that is why we asked the National Indigenous Congress that we sign jointly.

Because for the originary peoples, threats, lies, slander, beatings, prison, disappearance, and murder have been part of our daily life for years, decades, centuries.

Because what the teachers in resistance are suffering now, the originary peoples, in their barrios, nations, and tribes, have long suffered without anyone—anyone who isn’t part of the Sixth—noticing.

Because for a while now, the originary peoples, from their countrysides, valleys, and mountains, have seen and known what was coming for everyone [todos, todas, todoas]. That includes those who look at us with disdain, or as a target of mockery and charity (same thing), or as a synonym for ignorance and backwardness. That includes those who, short on vocabulary and imagination, reissued the word “indian” as an insult.

To all, todos, todas, todoas, we say: if you didn’t see it before, look now. Upon seeing or hearing about what they are doing to the teachers, think “I’m next.”

Because after the elementary education workers will come the pensioners, those in the health sectors, the bureaucrats, the small- and medium-sized businesses, the transportation workers, the university workers, those working in media, all of the workers of the countryside and city, indigenous and non-indigenous, rural and urban.

Perhaps this will be the conclusion of the families who, without belonging to organizations, parties, or movements, support the teachers. Maybe it is because they know “I’m next” that they lend so much popular support to the teachers. It doesn’t matter how much Aurelio Nuño writhes and gesticulates proclaiming that the teachers in resistance are a threat to those families and their children. Those families support the teachers’ movement. And they will continue to do so, even while the media and the paid machinery of the social networks endeavor, in futility, to echo the poor arguments that badly conceal the repression underway.

It is as if the lesson from below, without a face or an acronym, was: “If what has run out above is time, what has run out here below is fear.”

A difficult decision

This is the time of the teachers in resistance. It is necessary and urgent to be with them.

Over long months and in extremely difficult conditions, the Zapatista bases of support have prepared, practiced, and created artistic expressions that, perhaps, would surprise some [uno, una, unoa] for the CompArte festival.

But we Zapatistas think that supporting the teachers is so important that we have decided…

First: To suspend our participation in the CompArte festival, in the caracol of Oventik as well as in CIDECI in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, which will be held July 17-30, 2016.

Second: To donate all of the money and food we have saved for our transportation to and from Oventik and CIDECI and for provisions while we are there to the teachers in resistance.

Third: To the 1,127 artists from every corner of Mexico, to the 318 artists from other countries (including originary peoples from the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania) registered for CompArte, we give our sincere apologies and ask for your understanding. We know that the neither the expense nor the effort you have made are small, in addition to adjusting your schedules in order to be able to come and share your creations with us Zapatistas. We hope that what is now suspended can be later celebrated. We hope that you understand that it is an ethical assessment that has led us to this decision. We analyzed each and every one of our options and arrived at the conclusion, erroneous or not, that this is the way to support the struggle of the teachers and their communities. We are not willing to be strike-breakers or to dispute the limelight the teachers have won with pain and rage.

We respectfully ask that you, in accordance with your ways, times, and abilities, raise your art up with the teachers in resistance, in their activities, encampments, marches, rallies, and wherever the National Coordination of Education Workers and your artistic expressions deem appropriate.

We also ask the compañeroas of the Sixth to create, in line with their calendars, geographies, and abilities, the spaces and conditions for the Arts and their irreverent challenge to imagine other worlds, in order to celebrate humanity, its pains, its joys, and its struggles. Because that and only that is the objective of Comparte.

We Zapatistas will be in our places, attentive to what happens, to what is said and what is not said. We will continue to look with hope and respect at each and every resistance that arises in the face of the predatory machine.

For now we will put away our musical instruments, our paintings, our theater and cinematic scripts, our clothes for dancing, our poetry, our riddles (yes, there was a section for riddles), our sculptures and everything that, thinking of you all, we prepared to share.

We will put this all away for now, but, as Zapatistas, we won’t rest.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

Subcomandante Insurgente Moises

Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano

Mexico, July 2016

From the notebook of the Cat-Dog:

What a way to irritate and polarize a whole country! Who advises them? The same people who told them they would win in the state elections, that Brexit wouldn’t happen and that, once the vote was in, the impact would be minor, that the machine works so well it practically purrs? Or the businessmen hidden behind the “Mexicanos Primero”ii campaign? Well, if these are the minds that made the education reform, there you have an example of their great capacity for “analysis.” Did they tell them that Oaxaca was a kind of cheese? That Chiapas is the name of the ranch belonging to the Velascos, the Sabines, the Albores? That Guerrero’s border is the Sol highway and the hotel zones? That what must be protected in Michoacán is the Monarch butterfly? That nothing is happening in Nuevo Leon? That Tabasco is an Eden? That the health workers are going to be quiet and put up with anything? That the entire Nation is going to limit itself to venting via clever hashtags? Well, it turns out that they are getting lessons on national geography: Oaxaca’s last name is “indomitable”; Chiapas is the cradle of the EZLN, where the twenty-first century came early, where the end of the world was announced (the end of their world), and where culture, science, and art shout out what the media silences; Guerrero (and the entire country) are named Ayotzinapa; in Michoacán there is a place called Cherán and another called Ostula, and in all of the cardinal points there is a below that doesn’t give up, that doesn’t give in, and that doesn’t sell out. If the education reform isn’t modified, they should at least modify their advisors. Ah, and tell them at “Mexicanos Primero” that reality already evaluated them: they flunked.

I testify

Grrr, meow.

i The “Angel of Independence,” a landmark statue on the thoroughfare Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City, built in 1910 to commemorate the centennial of the beginning of Mexico’s War of Independence.

ii “Mexicanos Primero” is a corporate education reform lobby that backed the education reform mandating a standardized system of test-based hiring and teacher evaluation, among other things.

Big Mountain Residents Under House Arrest as Livestock Confiscated

Walee Crittenden stands with her family's livestock after the initial
 theft by armed rangers.

Breaking: Big Mountain Residents Under House Arrest as Livestock Confiscated

Tuesday June 7, 2016
1:30 pm MDT

By Klee Benally and Brenda Norrell
Censored News
English/French/Dutch
French translation by Christine Prat at
http://www.chrisp.lautre.net/wpblog/?p=3483
Dutch translation by Alice Holemans at:
http://www.denaisgazet.be/nieuws/bewoners-van-big-mountain-onder-huisarrest-terwijl-veestapel-in-beslag-genomen-wordt

BIG MOUNTAIN, Arizona -- Members of Louise Benally's family at Big Mountain are currently being detained inside their home while armed police forcibly take their livestock.

Navajo Nation officials failed to notify Hopi Tribe about previous arrangements to move the livestock to another location. The move was set to occur sometime this week.

Louise Benally told Censored News that her brother John Benally, her daughter Walee Crittenden, Walee's children, Louise Benally's nephew and others are being held under guard, under house arrest, by five Hopi Rangers and five BIA Police. Police have held them inside the home of John Benally since 7 am, Louise said.

Louise said there is no need for this show of force. There are elderly and children in the home.

"They did not have to come and harass us like this," Louise said.

Louise said the family was in the process of transferring their livestock to near Flagstaff.

The Benally family has been resisting forced relocation for 40 years. The so-called Hopi Navajo land dispute was secretly schemed by the attorney for Peabody Coal and US Congressmen to clear Navajos off the land for Peabody coal mining. This coal became the fuel to light up southern Arizona with the dirty coal fired power plant on the Navajo Nation, Navajo Generating Station. What can help? As Navajos at Big Mountain say, after many trips to the United Nations: "We've been waiting 40 years for the United Nations to do something." -- Censored News