The Inheritance of the Struggle for Life in Zapatista Childhood and Youth

Mexico City | Desinformémonos. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) shared a video in which young people and children from 12 to 20 years of age explain in Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Tojolabal and Cho’ol how to make different materials, baskets, musical instruments, among other objects, based on “the knowledge they have inherited from their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and so on for generations.

The common thread of their creations, explained the EZLN, “is the repudiation of capitalism, preparing to survive the storm and, the day after, trying to build a new world”. “The school where they learned this knowledge is in the hearts of their fathers, mothers and predecessors,” added the Zapatistas in the communiqué, published in the framework of the “Rebel and Revel” Art Encounter, which began this April 13 in the Zapatista caracol Jacinto Canek.

The video shows the young people explaining the making of their baskets with materials “from mother earth”; paintings with inks made with earth and different types of plants to obtain the colors, partitions made with plants and earth; pots, plates, platters; making ‘calhidra’; musical instruments such as drums and flutes that they use for music in their communities’ festivities; “morraletas” and bags; making fire, among other objects and materials.

The Rebel and Revel Encounter has brought together more than a thousand artists, musicians, filmmakers, poets, sculptors, dancers and radio broadcasters from Zapatista communities and other parts of Mexico and the world, such as Germany, Brazil, France, Greece, Palestine, Peru and Sudan. Since it began, musical numbers, dances and artistic exhibitions have been presented.

Until April 20, the event organized by the EZLN will be a space for any artist “who is against the capitalist, patriarchal, racist, discriminatory and criminal system, and, of course, who feels called” to exhibit their art.

See the photos by Luis Enrique Aguilar of Desinformémonos here:

Here is the complete communiqué:

Here we present a summary where young Zapatista women and men show some of the knowledge they have inherited from their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and so on for generations.  In their own mother tongue, of Mayan roots, they explain how they make baskets with materials from mother earth; paintings with inks made with earth and different types of plants to obtain the colors, their drawings represent their past, their present and the future that is on the horizon and for which we fight; partitions also made with plants and earth; pots, plates, platters; manufacture of calhidra; musical instruments such as drums and flutes that they use for music in the festivities of their communities; making ropes and, with them, weaving nets to carry corn, backpacks and bags; making fire; and paintings on skin with natural inks.  They speak in their languages Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Tojolabal and Cho’ol. The common thread is the repudiation of capitalism, preparing to survive the storm and, the day after, trying to build a new world. All are under 20 years of age. The infant is 12 years old. The school where they learned this knowledge is in the hearts of their fathers, mothers and predecessors.

The complete videos of each task, in their original languages, will appear later on the Enlace Zapatista web page.

Original text published by Desinformémonos on April 15th, 2025.
Communiqué and video published by the EZLN on April 14th, 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18559

Grounding Our Purpose: The Second National Black Radical Organizing Conference

The Second National Black Radical Organizing Conference (NBROC) continues the legacy of Black radical resistance, uniting organizers to confront imperialism, capitalism, and white supremacy while building an independent path toward collective liberation. The gathering in Indiana – 53 years after the historic National Black Political Convention –  reaffirms that our freedom lies not in reforming a broken system but in dismantling it and forging a revolutionary future.

In March 1972, on the heels of the Black Freedom Movement, nearly ten thousand Black people, including organizers, activists, politicians, and artists, convened in Gary, Indiana, for the National Black Political Convention (NBPC). Similar to today, they faced the failure of the two-party duopoly, rising inflation, growing economic crisis, an unpopular imperialist war, counterattacks on our movements, and a pressing need for political clarity. Among the NBPC’s goals was to build an independent Black Agenda. While they achieved this goal by producing a National Black Agenda, class and ideological factions ultimately weakened the ability to organize around it. Thus, the appetite for political clarity and strategy sought at the ‘72 conference still eats at us as we meet in Indiana 53 years later. 

The Second National Black Radical Organizing Conference (NBROC) is an attempt, as many have done before us, to create a space to discuss, debate, train, assess, and create a collective way forward for Black/African/New Afrikan organizations and organizers who believe that our struggle for self-determination is paramount to our survival. We understand that without organized political power, we will not collectively achieve affordable housing, an environmentally sustainable planet, life-affirming education, land sovereignty, food justice, and economic security. We do not look to be integrated, assimilated, or incorporated into America but to liberate ourselves from it. By Any Means Necessary!

The Black Radical Tradition- the opposition to empire, imperialism, patriarchy, and capitalism as we fight for self-determination- is under attack, and we must fight back. Our enemies are working hard to appropriate and neutralize our historical traditions, symbols, and narratives of resistance. This was on full display at the Democratic National Convention and throughout the ill-fated Harris Campaign, where many of our symbols and s/heros, like Fannie Lou Hamer, Frantz Fanon, and W.E.B DuBois, were grossly misappropriated to support their imperialist agenda and justify the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. The Republicans and their ilk are no better, as their overt white nationalist stance presents a clear and present danger to our people. Going forward, our movement must draw some clear lines in the sand against the two parties of imperialism and the notion that engaging the two-party system is the only legitimate path to accomplish our goals.

We are clear that our enemy is organized. They invade us for charting our own path, imprison us for defending ourselves against them, starve us for profits, expel us for questioning their history, and deprive our bodies of freedom for exercising our own choices. They are organized through military budgets, campaign contributions, banking institutions, governmental laws, and media propaganda. Capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy are nothing but expressions of an organized enemy. An enemy that has left us bargaining for crumbs each election cycle.

The first National Black Radical Organizing Conference (NBROC) was convened in Atlanta in June 2023. We aim for BROC to serve as a place for an ongoing collective process to provide greater political clarity for our movement and our people. We need to make it clear that to be a Black Radical is to be a revolutionary and that being a revolutionary means being committed to the struggle to end capitalism, white supremacy, colonialism, imperialism, and patriarchy. It means building for our collective liberation by developing our institutions to construct a socialist future through organizing the Black working class, building new social movement trade unions that serve the interests of our people, independent Black political power,  participatory democracy, solidarity economics, and ecologically regenerative practices to situate us in the right relationship with Mother Earth. To be successful, our praxis – theory and practice – must be dialectical and material. We must have a solid class analysis and a deep understanding of dynamic and generative culture that constantly returns us to our African source(s) and moves us forward towards a love supreme.

Therefore, we will gather to forge an independent base beyond the two-party duopoly. We insist that we must advance clear revolutionary nationalist, Pan-African, and internationalist perspectives. Our liberation will not come from trying to reform American institutions or political parties. It will be born out of defeating US imperialism and dismantling the systems of capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy—nothing short of it.

At this conference, we will help organizers further establish the skills to build a base beyond the duopoly. We will sharpen our methods of strategy, hone our communication skills, refine our ethics, strengthen our analysis, identify our needs, and bring new people along with us.

Despite its many shortcomings, the 1972 National Black Political Convention provided a space to activate political imagination. We are organizing this conference to give our people the space to enter and grow. We recognize that everyone enters the struggle at their own level with the ambition to contribute more. Here, we want to nurture that ambition because we can win only with the masses’ invigorated participation!

The National Black Radical Organizing Conference will be held May 30 – June 1st at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. It is sponsored by representatives Black Alliance for Peace, Community Movement Builders, National Black Liberation Movement, Black Men Build, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Cooperation Jackson, and more to be announced. Registration is now open.

source: Black Agenda Report

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18493

On Genocide, Zionist Propaganda and Student Activism – by Grim

“I held my gun so that the generations after me could hold a sickle…” -Palestinian song, Ahd Allah Ma Nerhal (By God We Won’t Leave)

“…[W]e have hope because we know, now more than ever, that these horrors in the name of upholding a racist settler-colonial occupation are not going to last forever. Anyone who ever thought it would will be astounded in hindsight.” -Rawan Masri, “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood Was An Act of Decolonization”

I, like most of Our comrades who organize behind the gulag walls, have been following the ongoing genocide carried out by the Zionist entity upon the people of Palestine with varied mixtures of feelings, with the number one emotion being unadulterated rage alongside an equal amount of awe at the steadfast courage of the Palestinian resistance and their allies throughout the Levant, or the “Middle East”.

You might think that the rage stems from the atrocious conduct that sadly has been par for the course of the Zionists since at least 1947 in the beginnings of what would become the Nakba carried out by the various Zionist terror organizations such as the Haganah, Irgun and LEHI who most infamously were responsible for the April 9, 1948 Deir Yassin massacre in which 250 defenseless Palestinians were slaughtered, including 100 wimmin and children, and then the village was subsequently looted and plundered. While I cannot deny that the daily depredations of the Zionist occupation forces raises my ire profoundly, the rage actually stems more from the stunning ignorance of the so-called “friends and supporters” of “I$rael” who voice their profoundly inaccurate, and most of the time entirely false statements, “hystory lessons on the so-called ‘conflict’,” (non)interpretations of international law, and most importantly their insistence on not calling the Zionist entity’s actions and policies what they’ve been since the start of the ethnic cleansing under Plan Dalet beginning in April 1948: genocidal. Many of these people are probably of the opinion as well that the vast majority of other settler-colonial projects (such as the United $nakes, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, etc.) were also not genocidal from their beginnings, likely using the age old excuses of blaming the so-called “savages” for provoking the “reasonable” and “peace loving” settlers into defending themselves and the land they mistakenly believe they didn’t steal thanks to their belief that God gifted or promised it to them in perpetuity because “he’s God” and “what he says goes.”(1) These “friends and supporters” of “I$rael” will do absolutely no research into the validity of their statements, instead choosing to equate the Palestinian struggle to liberate all of the hystoric Palestine and finally be free to return to their lands, with a genocidal Arab conspiracy to wipe out the Jews.

So in the interests of correcting the misinformation and lies, and cutting through the Zionist propaganda it stems from and in full solidarity with Our comrades across hystoric Palestine, in the diaspora, on campuses and in the streets, this article will attempt to deconstruct some of the most common discourse that is parroted in the bourgeois media which has fueled this latest round of anti-Arab hysteria and Islamophobia and crucially, the pattern of Amerikan rejectionism to Palestinian Liberation and indifference to the crimes of its client state.

It behooves all of us to study history, and studying the hystory of what has become known as the Palestinian-I$raeli conflict and the principal actors and organizations is not an exception to this rule.

So in that context, I will begin with one of the Zionists’ more devious lies; the so-called “I$raeli” “purity of arms” and its common usage, that “I$rael” never targets civilians or civilian infrastructure. Although any cursory observation of I$rael’s conduct from the 1948 Nakba to the present day would prove otherwise, We can look to none other than Zionist hero and first prime minister David Ben-Gurion for the proof. In his Independence War Diary, he set down on paper the military doctrine that would become standard protocol throughout the history of the Zionist project.

There is no question as to whether a reaction is necessary or not. The question is only time and place. Blowing up a house is not enough. What is necessary is cruel strong reactions. We need precision in time place and causalities. If we know the family – [we must] strike mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise the reaction is inefficient. At the place of action there is no need to distinguish between guilty and innocent.(2)

This specific entry was written on January 1, 1948, one day after the Haganah occupied the Palestinian village of Balad al-Shaykh, the burial place of Shaykh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam (one of Palestine’s most revered resistance leaders of the 1920’s and 30’s), massacring over 60 Palestinian civilians, men, wimmin, and children, most while they were asleep in their homes. This massacring of civilians in their sleep over 75 years ago lines up exactly with the countless stories told by survivors of today’s indiscriminate bombings to the doctors that have been working nonstop within the largely destroyed remains of Gaza’s hospitals.(3)

Let us also remember that when Ben-Gurion wrote those words, the Zionist leadership at the time was working on “Plan Dalet”, finalized on March 10, 1948, which was the military blueprint for the ethnic cleansing of hystoric Palestine.(4)

To illustrate before moving on to the next topic, lets look back at two of the lesser known massacres during the initial Nakba; “Lydda and Ramla” and “Safsaf.”

On a blistering hot Ramadan day in July 1948, a Haganah general named Yitzhak Rabin (who would later become ambassador to Washington D.C., then “I$raeli” Prime Minister, then sign the Oslo accords on the White House lawn, then be assassinated for it by “I$raeli” reactionaries) descended upon the Palestinian towns of Lydda and Ramla with his unit and violently expelled approximately 50,000 men, wimmin and children.

In Lydda, dozens of Palestinians were gathered and detained in the Dahmash mosque and church premises, all unarmed, and were subsequently gunned down. Afterwards the Zionists gathered an additional 20 to 50 Palestinians to clean up the mosque and bury all of the bodies. After they had placed the bodies in their graves, they themselves were shot into the open graves and left there to bleed out and die. In total between 250 to 400 Palestinians were massacred in Lydda. An additional 350 more died after being expected and forced to march to the frontlines of the Arab armies in what would become known as the Lydda Death March.(5)

As a sidenote, the events that occurred at Lydda and the subsequent death march after, were a formative event in the life of a young George Habash, who was from Lydda, and in 1948 at age 19 left the American University in Beirut, Lebanon where he was a medical student and returned to Lydda during the war to help his family. The Haganah attacked the town soon after, and in the subsequent death march, without water or food, during Ramadan no less, his sister died before they reached the Arab army’s frontlines. This could possibly be one of the reasons which fed his uncompromising leadership and opposition to the Zionist regime as a pivotal leader of first the Harakat al-Qawmiyyin al-Arab (Arab Nationalist Movement) and then of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Lastly, we come to the massacre at Safsaf during the initial Nakba. Though this is one of the lesser known atrocities of the Nakba, it is vital to the overall understanding, as a quarter of the 12 well documented instances of rape by the Zionists were recorded here. Those who remember the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War will know what happens next.

The Zionists started by cleansing the town by using their “patented” strategy of surrounding the town on 3 sides, firing into the air and into the sides of buildings in the hopes of driving the population out of the fourth, open side of the town. Then they entered the town, gathering up all of those who still remained in their homes, initially shooting and killing 12 young men. The remaining 52 men were caught, then tied together and thrown into a pit the Zionists dug, then subsequently shot and killed. Seeing this, the remaining wimmin of the town came and asked the Zionists for mercy. The Zionists told several of the wimmin to go and fetch water to the town. Once they moved away from the others, they were followed by the militiamen and raped, two of the women being killed in the process. The womyn who survived was a child of fourteen years old.(6) These are just a few of the massacres of civilians by the Zionists during the initial Nakba. If we line them up alongside others, for instance, the October 1953 massacre in the West Bank village of Qibya by Ariel Sharon’s (another past war criminal made prime minister) infamous unit 101 of the “I$raeli” Offense Forces (IOF) special forces, the October 1956 Kafr Qasim massacre, the full IOF support given during the 1982 Lebanon war to their proxies, the Christian Phalangist and Maronite militias, to massacre 2,000 civilians in the Palestinian refugee camps Sabra and Shatila (which in hindsight was probably the last time there was mass protests within “I$rael” by Jews over their regime’s crimes against Palestinians), to the more recent wars, such as during “Operation Cast Lead” in 2008-09 which the UN’s fact finding report (Goldstone report) called a “deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate, and terrorize a civilian population”, a certain pattern starts to emerge; one of ethnic cleansing and genocide, funded and with political cover by Amerika.

Genocide & Denial

Genocide, the word as well as the action hangs heavy over Amerika and “I$rael”, so much so that it has stopped many from speaking out and acknowledging the Zionist regime’s actions against Palestine as genocidal.

A comrade over at Slingshot Collective in Berkeley, CA wrote an article for their latest newspaper issue, trying to elaborate on the reasons behind the silence during an active genocide, and though I agree with many of their conclusions (not wanting to sound “anti-Semitic”, general Amerikan apathy and indifference to the suffering of others and not wanting to split the Democratic Party base leading to a Trump victory this election year), I think there are other, deeper explanations for this, as well as outright genocide denial.(7)

When most Amerikans and “I$raelis” think about the word genocide, it is inevitable that they will first think of the Holocaust. The mass shootings carried out by the Einsatzgruppen (Nazi SS mobile death squads) and the gassing and immolation of millions of Ashkenazi Jews are rightfully called genocide; and yet many of these same Amerikans and “I$raelis” forget the genocide of approximately half of the 2 million Sinti and Romani peoples (Gypsies) of German occupied Europe known as the Porrajmos in the Romani language, nor do they seem to remember the systematic massacres of Slavic, LGBTQ+, and disabled peoples along with many political dissidents during the same time period by Nazi Germany.(8) And so, the benchmark for both countries for some act to count as genocide is something which looks like the Holocaust; a massive extermination of people in a relatively short amount of time.

And yet, the Nazi genocide and Zionist genocide do not resemble each other structurally or in any other meaningful way.

Like the settler colonial regimes of the United $nakes, Canada, New Zealand and Australia among others, the genocides that took place upon the indigenous First Nations have taken place over many decades, a small act here, a large act there, and this is what the genocide of the Palestinian Arab people by the Zionist regime has looked like and continues to look like to this day.(9)

As this practice of genocide continues against the people of Palestine, so too does Amerika continue this practice upon the internal semi-colonies of New Afrikans, Chican@s, and the First Nations here on occupied Turtle Island. Amerika also has a very interesting, as well as appalling, history relating to the UN Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide that bears mentioning.

After its founding convention in San Francisco in 1945, the United Nations set about sponsoring the creation of an international legal instrument for the prevention and punishment of genocide. The job for drafting this document was handed down to the Economic and Social Council of the UN General Assembly (GA) which retained several international legal consultants foremost among them Dr. Raphael Lemkin; an exiled Polish-Jewish jurist who had in 1944 coined the term ‘genocide’ in his work “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.” Lemkin, who authored most of the draft, submitted it in June 1947, and a month later it was rejected by several member states of the General Assembly, foremost among them the United $nakes, because of “important philosophical disagreements.” It was edited and then finally adopted by the GA on December 9, 1948. By 1951 enough countries had ratified it to afford it the status of binding international law; except for a partial ratification (with conditions and edits) in 1988 by the Reagan Administration, the U.$. has still not ratified the convention in its entirety.(10)

First off, lets look at what parts of Lemkin’s draft were so “philosophically disagreeable” to the United $tates. Lemkin was extremely thorough in the draft document, where he included linguistic and political groups under currently protected groups of racial, national, and religious groups. Also importantly, he included in the list of punishable acts (enumerated in Article 3 of the current convention) engaging in a number of “preparatory” acts such as developing techniques of genocide and setting up installations for the purpose of committing genocide.

Already we can see that if the above made it into the final draft, both Amerika and “I$rael” would have been in the ‘hot seat’, so to speak.

Lemkin also included preventing the “preservation or development” of the above groups as a punishable act as well as policies that would bring about the disintegration of the political, social, or economic structure of a group or nation (author’s note: Settlers & Neocolonialists Beware!).

Lastly and most crucially, Lemkin detailed 3 distinct and specific forms of genocide: physical, biological, and cultural. For physical genocide he included “slow death” measures such as the “subjection to conditions of life which, owing to lack of proper housing, clothing, food, hygiene and medical care… are likely to result in debilitation or death of individuals”, as well as “deprivation of all means of livelihood by confiscation of property, looting, curtailment of work, and denial of housing and supplies otherwise available to the other inhabitants of the territory concerned.” Biological genocide, apart from compulsory abortion and sterilization, included segregation of the sexes and obstacles to marriage. Cultural genocide included forced and systematic exile of individuals representing the culture of a group, as well as the destruction of a groups hystorical or religious monuments and the destruction of a group’s hystorical, artistic, and religious documents or objects.(11)

If one looks to the UN Genocide Convention today, it would be entirely accurate to say it no longer resembles in any meaningful way the original intentions of the author(s).

One might ask what the consequences of this are, and though there are many, I’ll only go into one.

Consequently, it has continued to further obfuscate what constitutes genocide, further allowing imperialist and reactionary regimes to continue policies of genocidal oppression, domestically as well as in the Global South. Yet as a direct result of this in the case of “I$rael”, many countries in the Global South have had enough of the genocidal Zionist regime. Most importantly South Africa (where the Zionists supported the apartheid regime before its collapse) charged the Zionist entity with genocide at the ICC (International Criminal Court) in the Hague. Many Central and South American countries, like Chile and Honduras, who both had to deal with genocidal reactionary regimes propped up by the support of both Amerika and “I$rael”, have both said enough is enough, and recalled their ambassadors to “I$rael” over the Amerikan funded genocide.(12) And also extremely important, and as a great way to segue into my last topic of this article, it has set off an explosion of support for Palestine from within the belly of the imperialist beast, in the U.$. but also all across Europe; vital to this effort has been Our comrades on college campuses across Turtle Island.

Student Activism and U.$. Attempts

to “Silence the Intifada”

When the first encampments and building occupations were setup, from Columbia University to campuses across occupied Turtle Island all the way to UC Berkeley, though I wasn’t surprised, (and forgive me for my emotional subjectiveness) tears of joy and pride sprang to my eyes as I watched the moving images on CNN move across the screen. Not since the Vietnam War and organizations like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) have we seen the anti-war movement, nor the BDS movement since its iteration against South African apartheid, consolidate into such a huge outpouring of love, rage, and solidarity on college campuses.

I was sadly also not surprised when the Pro-Zionist reactionaries sent the pigs in to silence the movement, nor have I been surprised at the Zionist propaganda campaign attempting to label the entire Palestinian solidarity movement “anti-Semitic” and “violent”, even going so far (a la Stop Cop City activists) as calling all protesting for Palestine “terrorists” and “supporters of terrorists”. Here in the Bay Area, there have been lies spread saying that the BDS strategy is no longer viable or legally possible for UC Board of Regents to boycott/divest from the Zionist entity, which has been uncovered as a lie to get Our comrades at Berkeley to abandon their camp and goals. Whether divestment is possible, we can look to the success of the anti-apartheid movement in 1986 at Berkeley to finally pressure the UC to divest $3.1 billion from companies doing business with apartheid South Africa.(13) Aside from this it’s also been insane to watch the bipartisan effort, from Genocide Joe to the outer reaches of the far right, to attempt to get the masses concerned with some of the alleged rhetoric of individuals on campus and the violence at the encampments (which from numerous sources have been proven to be incited by Zionist counter-demonstrators and the pigs), to try to get everyone to somehow forget his “ironclad” support of “I$raeli” genocide. Sadly for Genocide Joe and his Pro-Zionist rabble in Congress, students on campuses across Turtle Island have dug in and refused the false images the imperialists and their media have tried to paint of them, and have let the imperialists know 3 things: We are NOT going anywhere, We will NOT be silenced, and PALESTINE WILL BE FREE!

As the college term wraps up for the summer and many in the Palestine Solidarity Movement, on and off campus, set their sights this summer on an explosive confrontation at the Democratic National Convention alongside many other avenues for protest and action, I’d like to give one bit of advice if any students or other outside comrades may be reading: I think aside from the also important avenues of protest and actions here in the belly of the imperialist beast, it would be extremely beneficial to send as many comrades (students or otherwise) to the West Bank this summer, to live and learn among the Palestinian people themselves. Black Panther Party leader Huey P. Newton saw the importance of this, which led him to visit Palestine as well as revolutionary China. So did our recently passed elder and comrade SeKou Odinga, member of both the New York Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army (BLA), who met several times with members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and other resistance factions under the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) umbrella at the time while building the international chapter of the BPP in Aligiers, even finding time to train with the resistance fighters in guerrilla warfare. SDS and what would become the Weather Underground Organization (WU) also saw the importance of this in the 60’s and early 70’s meeting with revolutionaries from Cuba, Vietnam, and other countries to learn about them, their life and their struggle from their own points of view and in their own voices.

As the Zionists have only continued the ramping up of repression in the occupied West Bank since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, you could also play an integral role in getting the stories of Palestinians there back to the masses here in the U.$. as well as help in the already ongoing humanitarian efforts going on there. Just something to think about as we move into the summer.

In case you weren’t aware, We behind the gulag walls admire your unshakable and uncompromising support for Palestine’s liberation, and your unwavering courage in the face of wave after wave of attacks by Zionist reactionaries and their pig helpers. You inspire Us behind the wall and We can’t wait to see what you do next.

From the river to the sea,
Palestine will be Free!

Glory to the Martyrs

Freedom to the Prisoners

Healing to the Wounded

Revolution until Victory

Notes:

1. Patrick Wolfe, December 2006, “Settler Colonialism and the elimination of the native”, Journal of Genocide Research, 814
   2. Noam Chomsky, “The Fateful Triangle – The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians, ( Haymarket Books, 2014), pp. 200
   3. Irfan Galaria, February 23, 2024,”Doctor in Gaza sees only annihilation”, San Jose Mercury News
   4. Noam Chomsky & Ilan Pappe, “Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on the U.S. Israeli War on the Palestinians” (Haymarket Books, 2013), pp.69
   5. Nur Masalha, “The Palestinian Nakba: Decolonizing History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory” (Zed Books, 2012), pp. 86
   6. Adel Manna, “Nakba and Survival: The Story of Palestinians who Remained in Haifa and the Galilee, 1948-1956” (University of California Press, (2022), pp. 75-80
   7. Kermit, “Watching and Waiting?: On Speaking Out & Being Silent During Genocide”, Slingshot Issue 140 Summer 2024, pp. 2-3
   8. Ward Churchill, “A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present” (City Lights Books, 1997), pp. 36-49
   9. Patrick Wolfe, December 2006, “Settler Colonialism and the elimination of the native”, Journal of Genocide Research, 8/4
   10. Ward Churchill, pp. 363-364
   11. Ward Churchill, pp. 265-266
   12. FP Explainers, 3 May 2024, After Colombia, now Turkey: Which other nations have cut ties with Israel over Gaza war?, FirstPost.com
   13. DD, “Resisting the Neoliberal University & Unethical Investment”, Slingshot Issue 140 Summer 2024, pp. 5

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18348

EZLN Invites Us to Think about “The New World We Want”

San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas. At the start of the ‘’(Rebel and Rebellious) Art: A Gathering of Art, Rebellion, and Resistance Toward the Day After’’ on Sunday, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) called on everyone to “think about the new world we want” because capitalism “was born badly and that is why it will die.”

Sub-commander Moisés said at the opening of the encounter that “what we want is art for life,” while noting that “the capitalist system has accustomed us to it and that is why it dominates us, but after it dies, we will have nothing” if we do not prepare.

“Its work was to destroy what was good, and since it will die, there will be no drones because there will be no batteries, and cars because there will be no gasoline,” he emphasized before more than a thousand people gathered in a recently renovated Zapatista space in the community of Winictón, municipality of Tenejapa, to welcome visitors. Before the official inauguration, dozens of uniformed and hooded Zapatistas marched, uniformly clanging their sticks, the only weapon they carried.

“What brought us together here is art. Everything is art, except that in this place called Mexico and in the world today, there is an art created by those who dominate the world; that is, there is capitalist art, a capitalist system,” said Moisés.

“We,” he added, “want to create another art, but it is for life. The art created by the capitalist system is lethal for the people of the countryside and the city, and also for nature. The capitalist system was born badly, and it will end badly. It was not born for life. All the poor of the world are witnesses. We are certain that what capitalism gives is not life. But they used the art of inhumane domination.”

He added: “That’s what we’re calling you for, because we believe we can. We’re here at this gathering; we’re not here for a concert, because a concert is just a group representing something.”

He reiterated that “the capitalist system was born badly, and because it’s bad, it’s going to die. What happened to us? We got used to the system, and that’s why they dominate us. After it dies, we’re going to have nothing. Their job was to destroy what was good before. And since it’s going to die, there won’t be drones because there won’t be batteries, and cars because there won’t be gasoline. Imagine everything else. So, how will life be?”

He maintained that capitalism “has destroyed even nature, and there will be a reaction from nature,” so “we have to organize ourselves to see how we’re going to survive. We have to think about what will make us survive. That’s the art for which we’re here. That’s the task.”

He added: “We Mexicans are witnesses. Those who call themselves the government have done nothing. It’s the same system in other countries, as they say, or peoples, as we say. So we all have to think about the new world we desire, not the one those in power want, as they say. Power lies with the people. What they say is not power. No. Power lies in us deciding, proposing, discussing, and it’s up to us to decide which of the many ideas is the best. That’s power. The people decide, not a few.”

The sub-commander affirmed that “what we want is art for life; let’s think about what it will be like when there is no capitalism. One day without capitalism, what are we going to do? Because that’s what will happen. That’s why we are at this meeting: art to create a new life, art for life, because the art created by the capitalist system is no longer useful; we have begun the commons, and we are going to demonstrate in practice what that commons is, not in rhetoric.”

He emphasized: “We’re going to do it because it’s a new art that can’t be found in any book or manual. We’re going to create it because the capitalist system has completely destroyed it. That’s why we’re here.”

Original article by Elio Henríquez, La Jornada, April 13, 2025.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18338