-scribes-
Our blog writing has transitioned to Substack. Follow and subscribe here: https://xicanatiahui.substack.com/
XICAN@ NOTES ON LA TRAVESÍA POR LA VIDA: On the Manifestations in Response to the CNI-CIG and EZLN Call to Action [Part 5] The following are descriptive reflections of the manifestation on August 13th, 2021 in Madrid following the call to decentralized action. Our narratives speak to different parts of the “No Nos Conquistaron” events in Madrid, which also took place in different parts of the world. In this historic movement, Xicana Tiahui witnessed La Otra Europa. * * * La Otra Europa, México, y Los Estados Unidos The day was August 13th and the time was 5:00 pm. It was broadcasted to be one of the hottest days in Madrid. The streets and skyscraper buildings were filled with messages of rebellion. We walked to the gathering place, in the heart of the downtown area. In the plaza del carmen, we gathered to reflect on our struggles, to acknowledge the possibilities, and to plant seeds of global resistance. After two days of mesas de trabajo, we came together to prepare ourselves for what was to come. The organizers handed each one of us roses that became part of this exchange. We formed a circle and with a bandana, we created an altar right in the center. People introduced themselves, their struggles, and their vision for the future. Everyone shared their palabra and spoke about their struggles in geographies across Europe, Mexico and the US. As the only delegates from the US and members of Sexta Grietas del Norte, we shared the struggles that inspired us, the ones that motivate us, the ones that fuel us to do the work of collective freedom. The altar, a collective creation, was the physical manifestation that acknowledged collective, local, international, and global struggle. One by one, people shared their struggles. Slowly they cut up their flowers and placed pieces on the altar. An intimate moment. A time of humanization. A time of recognition. A time for recalibrations of previous conceptions. We opened a portal to see where we overlap, to see where Europe from below and to the left intersects with the below and the left from Mexico and the United States. And right when it was about to end, acts of kindness moved people in the space. First, a Mexicana journalist Daliri was given a rose for their commitment to documenting movements. A writer for and of the people. Traveling and documenting manifestations of collectivity. The tears of love and compassion quickly changed the mood. It was followed by another act of kindness. This time from Manuel, a diasporic Mexican from Guerrero now living in France. He gave me a rose and recognized the struggles of Mexican - Indigenous - Chicanx migrants living in the United States and contesting colonialism. Como dicen los Zapatistas, la gira por la vida, es la colectivización de pueblos en el mundo que son de abajo y a la izquierda. Gracias compas. Escribiendo desde las trincheras de tlayudas y rebeldía, Gustavo The Yellow Ship Discovers Columbus Amidst the colonial landscape thousands gathered for the anniversary of the fall of Tenochtitlán in 108 F degree heat. The Esquadron 421 arrived at the Plaza del Sol and began to board a big yellow ship decorated with EZLN flags, balloons, and colorful banners. The ship sailed the streets of Madrid amongst an ocean of chants. “Zapata Vive! La Lucha Sigue y Sigue”. “La Tierra No Se Vende Se Ama y se Defiende”. The compas of Esquadrón 421 travelled by ship to Spain and arrived at the port of Vigo on June 22, 2021. A Spanish compa shared that this port was where the first ship returning from the “new” world disembarked with foods, gold, and Indigenous peoples from the Americas. The Spanish ships brought violence and death to the Americas and returned to proudly show off the evidence of their “discoveries.” Now the Zapatistas return to Spain on a ship not with the purpose of imposing a new world view but to instead build networks from below and to the left. The yellow ship traveled the urban streets of Madrid, a symbolic image for all those watching to remember what happened not so long ago. Just 500 years later Indigenous pueblos enter Centro Colon and are once again face to face with Christopher Columbus. by Maritza Geronimo Danza de Resistencia en Madrid - Seeds of Ceremony Walking from Plaza del Carmen to the Plaza del Sol to participate in the Zapatista Manifestación, the buildings reverberated with pulses of a familiar rhythmic drum. The Circulo de Danza Guerreros de La Luz offered a ceremony and prayer in honor of the 500 years of Indigenous resistance and life. Standing in the middle of the Plaza, the group assembled an altar and invoked the four directions and called towards the antepasados. The danza visibly transformed the plaza, creating a spectacle for tourists who clearly did not understand what was happening. The unfamiliarity and curiosity written upon their faces, as they stood and uttered questions and commentary. Those from España (or at least perceived to be) also strolled by, took pictures and watched as the danzantes transformed Madrid into another world, distinct from their everyday. The danzantes in their act of bringing ceremony to the Plaza del Sol, opened a portal intended to celebrate the ancestors who lived and died in the struggle against colonialism. Their ceremony created spiritual ties with the people across the world who, in the now, continue the struggle for life and fight against the destructive systems and forces that aim to foreclose an Indigenous future. The ceremony, like the Zapatistas, marked this moment as the commencement of a new era. An era that will bring forward new possibilities for Indigenous peoples and all peoples in struggle. The danza held in synergy with the manifestación provided a needed moment of reflection and shift in movement building. Forcing La Otra Europa to witness alternative acts of rebellion that look and feel different from marching and chanting. A reminder that there are other acts that propel us forward in our missions to build other worlds, other forms of being, and other forms of relating. Tiahui, Natalia Toscano Danza Mexica ceremonial danza at the Plaza de Sol in honor of the 500 years of resistance hosted by Circulo de danza Guerreros de Luz. Witnessed by tourists and participants of the march for La Gira Por La Vida prior to the arrival of Zapatista Squadron 421. Madrid, España. Tierra Insumisa. August 13, 2021. Photo Credit: Linda Quiquivix. 500 Years Later… the Esquadrón Marítimo Zapatista (421) Speak We arrived at La Plaza de Colón, or Columbus Plaza, close to 9 p.m. GMT in Madrid after marching for what felt like 500 years. Among the crowd marching, chanting, and singing for life and against Spain/Europe from above, you could see faces from all over the world. I marched alongside the anti-fascists, feminists, hooligans, punks, anarchists, Marxists, Black radicals, Mapuches, Xican@s, Spaniards, Mexicans, Latinxs, Arabs, Italians, Catalans, and a group waving a Palestinian flag among others in the crowd who became a voice that yelled “No Nos Conquistaron.” Many of us had prepared for this march as medios libres to accompany others who were engaged in autonomous documentation and media. As the compa Natalia called it, while we participated in an encounter at Esta es una plaza, we [Xicana Tiahui] were doing “insurgent documentary.” Many of us found ourselves running and chasing pictures of banners, t-shirts, the Zapatistas on the big yellow boat, and moments that caught our eyes as we also sang with the people. We followed the march as we arrived at the final destination that was full of symbolic monuments that marked the Zapatista encounter with Spain. Towering over us was a statue on a pillar of Italian-Genoese navigator Cristoforo Colombo (created on 1892), a giant bust sculpture named Julia (2018) by Jaume Plensa, and the Monumento al Descubrimiento de América (1970) that documents Spain’s narration of its own encounter with Las Américas adjacent to the huge Bandera de España that waved in the night. In the face of these monuments to Spain’s initiation into modernity, the Esquadrón 421 disembarked their symbolic yellow boat to climb the steps of the monument to the supposed “discovery” of Las Américas to speak to Spain from below. One of the Zapatista compas approached the mic to commence their announcement entitled “Just 500 Years Later”, acknowledging the hospitality of the people from Spain and spoke their truth from their world: “We are Zapatistas of Mayan roots. “We are from a geography called Mexico and we crossed the ocean to say these words to you, to be with you, to listen to you, to learn from you. “We are from Mexico and in you and with you we find endearment, care, respect.” From their small corner of the world, Southeast Mexico, the Zapatista compas spoke of their struggles with recognition from the Bad Government of the Mexican State, but they were also there to share how 501 delegates of the Zapatistas, the National Indigenous Congress, the Indigenous Governing Council, and the Peoples’ Front in Defense of the Land and Water, were traveling in parts to Tierra Insumisa. The struggle to travel to La Otra Europa, the Other Europe, was shared to all: “All have suffered to get papers and vaccinations. They have gotten sick and have gotten well. They have felt hunger and have been away from their families, their communities, their land, their language, their culture. The Zapatistas are not here in Tierra Insumisa to share their experiences, they are here to directly learn from the struggles of Europe, from the people themselves. In that process, they then play a part in weaving struggles, confronting differences, and in proposing that those who fight for life are struggling together. They continue: “But we have learned that seeds are exchanged, sown, and grown on a daily basis, in our respective soil, with the knowledge of each person. “Tomorrow is not born in the light. It is cultivated, cared for, and born in the unnoticed shadows of the early morning, when the night begins to cede terrain.” The seeds of rebellion, that is Zapatismo, traveled to Europe. They are not asking for us/them to adopt their ways, their geographies, nor their modes of organizing resistance. No. They ask us to move with the rage that sparks our spirit. “It is not about abandoning convictions and struggles. On the contrary. We think that the struggles of women, otroas, workers, natives, not only should not stop, but should be deeper and more radical. Each one faces one or more heads of the Hydra. “Because all those struggles, of yours and of us Zapatista Peoples, are for life. “But as long as we do not destroy the monster in its heart, those heads will continue sprouting and changing shape but with greater cruelty.” Their words for struggling from below and to the left acknowledge the struggle to embrace new tactics, new strategies, and changing forms of how we resist to fully destroy La Hidra Capitalista, the capitalist hydra. All struggles for life are valid in our movement in, against, and beyond capitalism as the form and relations of domination that the Zapatistas believe to be our general antagonism. “But, just as in every corner of the planet, in every beating heart, there is a misfortune present and another to come, there is also a resistance, a rebellion, a struggle for life. “Because living is not only not dying, it is not about surviving. Living as human beings is living with freedom. Living is art, it is science, it is joy, it is dance, it is struggle.” The struggle for life is a struggle for each and one of our hearts, beyond humanity, the heart of the Earth itself. As human peoples we fight for our existence on this Earth, to love and live. “Because we Zapatista communities have come to listen and learn the history that exists in each room, in each house, in each neighborhood, in each community, in each language, in each way and in each oh well.” With this rally at the end of the march, the Zapatistas shared their word. They showed that they were listening to the word from below, to sow and grow. They called on Tierra Insumisa to cultivate their own struggles for life, to weave and listen too. To show the world that they too are rebellion against domination. Their word, which was published by Enlace Zapatista the early morning the next day, was signed as follows: On behalf of the Zapatista communities. The Zapatista Maritime Squadron, named “Squadron 421.” Planet Earth. August 13, just 500 years later. The crowds cheered loudly, “E-Z-L-N.” We witnessed Tierra Insumisa, another Europe from below and to the left. We struggle with them. in solidarity, Kristian E. Vasquez From SLUMIL K’AJXEMK’OP, or Tierra Insumisa.
Territorios en Resistencia. Madrid, España. Planeta Tierra. Comments are closed.
|
Blog
Here we post our writings of thoughts we have, essays we have written, poetry, social commentary, news reports, polemics, and other kinds of writing. We hold it valuable to our hearts the written word in the spirit of the huehuetlahtolli, and we aspire to be intellectually on point as well as accessible to our gente from the barrio to the academy. Archive
November 2022
Categories |