Part One. The Hypothesis (or was it the hypotenuse?)
You will excuse me if I do not address specifically, but in general, the people, groups, collectives, organizations, movements and original peoples from the Declaration for Life. A large part of these people not only already know, and suffer, the Storm first hand. They have also been resisting, working and struggling for a long time to create the foundations for other worlds. They have their own analysis of the storm and their alternative for the Day After. From these people we hope that they will share their vision, their diagnosis and, above all, their practice. Many of them we know. Most of them we do not. And we believe that their history and their present actions would greatly enrich other efforts, if not similar or alike, at least in the same endeavor: the struggle for life. In fact, there are special dates for this sharing. Having clarified the above, let’s look at the sciences and the arts.
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Do the arts and sciences depend on the technologies of modernity? I mean, if there is no internet, apps, cell phones, tablets and computers, Artificial Intelligence, fossil fuel energy, etc. Is dramatic art possible? Painting? Music? Dance? Sculpture? Literature? Cinema? The sciences?
Oh, I know. The arts were not born with the system that now strangles the whole of humanity. But perhaps it is already a “paradigm shift” (an alibi par excellence for the capitulations), and the system has convinced the “majorities” that, without it, without capitalism, humanity is impossible.
And the sciences, can they prove that the earth is spherical without internet, aerial photos, etc., explain planetary movements, physics and chemistry without laboratories or tutorials, mathematics beyond apples and pears (of course, with how expensive everything is today, even without apples and pears)?
Because it could be, it is supposed, that in a situation of catastrophe, someone may appear who argues that the earth is flat and square, that climate change and global warming do not exist, and that they are just an invention of corrupt and ugly environmentalists (the corrupt part could happen, but the “ugly” part is inexcusable – especially with the infinity of cosmetic products and digital applications that can remedy it), that everything is fine, that nothing is happening, that these are isolated facts, that it was like that before but now everything has changed, that we are not the same, that everyone is happy, happy, happy, happy. Oops! The idea was not to talk about politics, a subject that usually makes scientists and artists uncomfortable (or sometimes makes them talk nonsense).
But suppose that, in those moments of desperation and chaos, when the different governments consult surveys and popularity indexes to decide whether or not to assist a place in distress, and whether or not to send help, someone appears as a “prophet” of salvation and “explains” that everything is divine punishment, the fault of the conservatives, the liberals, the radicals, the rightists, the leftists, and so on and so forth.
I am not talking about the current situation in any of the Mexican states; nor in the southeastern states of the American Union, or about the destruction -with right-wing or progressive geopolitical ploys-, in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Haiti, the Wallmapu ten, a hundred, a thousand times unsubmissive. I am talking about all of it, but in a big, global way, in the parts and the whole.
To you, as an artist or scientist (or both), would the world end? I mean YOUR world. Yes, I know, from the most ancient times the arts and some sciences appear; and graphic design applications owe something to, for example, the paintings in the caves of Altamira; mathematics and astronomy to the ancient Mayas; dramatic art to the descriptions, with gestures and sounds, of those who, millennia ago, described how they had managed to escape from a saber-toothed tiger; architecture to Stonehenge in blond Albion; sculpture to the Moais of the Rapanui people.
But… to what extent or to what degree do the technologies of modernity already control, or not, the artistic creation and scientific research?
No, it is not a matter of redirecting, with the explosion of a nuclear device, an asteroid to collide and destroy the Hubble Telescope: or of burning or looting scientific research centers (that is already being taken care of by organized crime-made-government and those who jump from science to politics). And, in that case, I am sure that the whole scientific community would unite if someone even tried to destroy the research structure; threaten its members; file criminal charges against them; or hitch scientific research to a partisan political project, wouldn’t they (ah, isn’t my sarcasm subtle?)?
I am referring, in contrast, to a borderline situation, where these resources are impossible to obtain, or there are many difficulties in gaining access to them. What will happen to the sciences and the arts, as well as to the people who are engaged in them?
Now, you may think that such a scenario is not even possible, and that it is nothing more than a bad script for a bad science fiction movie – “science fiction”: an oxymoron, like “honest politician”-. Ok, fine, stay with your stage, easel, 8k screen, digital platform, lab, academia.
I’m sure you have hard data – proven studies, simulation models, non-renewable resource counts, consumption and replenishment trends – that such a scenario is “highly unlikely” – along with global warming, climate change, wars of reconquest, environmental pollution, genocides such as the current one in Palestine; and that you have access to reliable surveys showing that people are satisfied with their current standard of living (so that the possible emergence of uprisings, riots, insurrections, protests, looting, revolts is also remote).
Ok, I will not contradict you. You have renown and position in the Arts and Sciences, and I am just a poor infantry captain, now assigned to the area of “Invitations for Weddings, Baptisms, First Communion, Divorces, Anniversaries, XV years and… Encounters.”
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But then, suppose you are presented with a challenge: imagine that you are going to be in a community. More specifically, at the assembly of that community… and the day after. No electricity, no prepaid cell phones or rental plan, no “internet for all,” no Elon Musk and his little local equivalents of tiny credits, no private vehicles designed to withstand riots and mob uprisings (the extra armor in the cybertruck is billed separately), no fossil fuels to start the other vehicle and go get a signal (while cursing the governments and companies in turn), and without the possibility of buying a ticket on a modern interstellar rocket that will take you to another planet “all included” (that is, including the labor force that lives, reproduces and dies while it serves you – notice how I elegantly avoided, with elegance, any reference to “exploitation”).
None of that is possible anymore. Of course, still in this hypothetical scenario in which you are in an assembly of a community isolated from everything, because the whole no longer exists.
There are several people who are with you and, to start that germ of society, in an assembly of that community, each of those people will say what they are, know and can do, and they will propose, discuss and agree on how they are going to organize themselves. Well, I am in fact describing what is currently happening in a community assembly of indigenous peoples.
And, just as in a community assembly of native peoples, the meeting sets an objective and proposes, discusses and agrees on what is to be done, how, who is going to do it, where, when; in this hypothetical assembly, in which you are forced to be because of the circumstances, the objective is… to recommence.
So let’s continue with the challenge for you to imagine and place yourself in this situation and, for whatever reasons, the world as you knew it has collapsed.
So let’s go back to the assembly:
There is someone who says he knows how to work the land and he only needs his hands and he can make something that, that person says, is called “coa.” Everyone seems to know what that thing is, so you don’t ask for fear of being ridiculed. There are those who say they know about plants and can make medicines. Some say they can identify fruits, mushrooms and vegetables (yuck!), grow them and preserve them. Some say they know something about carpentry and can make tables, chairs and, of course, beds. Some say they know masonry and can help build houses. There are those who say they know mechanics and can try to start that old engine of that old abandoned vehicle, or transform it into an engine powered by air, water, heat. And so on, each person presents his or her skills, highlighting, in this situation, the so-called “manual skills.”
And then your turn comes, what do you say?
Do you say you are an artist as if you were confessing a sin of your youth?
Do you say you know about science as if you regret having belonged to a fanatical sect or a political party -it’s the same thing-?
As your turn to speak comes around, you are a moderately intelligent person and you have realized that the most valuable for that germ of society are those who, thanks to their skills and knowledge, can achieve -with their work-: food, mobility, health, education and housing for those who live in that community.
As it is, you may have to face more than one dilemma.
To be continued…
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
The Captain
October 2024.
Call to International Meetings of Rebellions and Resistance 2024-2025
Original article published by Enlace Zapatista on October 11th, 2024.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.