In this ninth text of the series, the author proposes a look through art to understand the dynamics of the construction of the Zapatista struggle in Mexico and how it is articulated with the European resistance networks.
Resistance and rebellious movements in Mexico have always been accompanied by an important visual production and the Zapatista movement is a paradigmatic case. From the beginning, the Zapatistas communicated with the world with the written word, but in a deeper and more significant way, with the “art that cannot be seen, nor heard,” to put it in words with which Subcomandante Moisés presented the CompArte festival in a press release published on August 3, 2016.
Art is an excellent entry point, to understand the dynamics of construction of the Zapatista struggle in Mexico and how it is articulated with European resistance networks. It is impossible in this text to reconstruct the entire historical trajectory of art about, for and from the Zapatista communities, so here I will only try to open a window to one of the most recent symbols found about Zapatismo. I will try to reconstitute the trajectory of a specific image: that of the sailboat called La Montaña, (also known as the Zapatista boat or barquito, among Zapatista support collectives), which has become the symbol of the Journey for Life -also known as the Zapatista Tour-, and the starting point of militant actions that have united several social actors and cultural worlds in Europe, Mexico and the world.
The Journey for Life is an initiative of the Zapatista movement, which aims to weave networks of resistance on the five continents, with collectives, collectives and organizations committed to the defense of life and the creation of alternatives to capitalism. The first stage of this initiative, called Chapter Europe, took a sizeable delegation of Zapatistas in 2021: a first maritime delegation, Squadron 421, and a second called La Extemporánea, which arrived by plane to meet with groups of activists who struggle “from below and to the left” on that continent. For several months, beginning on September 14, 2021, in Vienna, Austria, La Extemporánea traveled through various parts of the territory that the Zapatistas renamed in Mayan Tsotsil as Slumil K’ajxemk’op, which means Tierra Insumisa, Land that does not give in, that does not give up, until the conclusion of this chapter that took place on December 7, 2021 in Madrid. The Zapatistas and European activists who participated in the Zapatista Tour, mobilized within the context of the Journey for Life – Europe Chapter from different political forms, highlighting the graphic practices that converged to a large extent in the little boat of the Zapatista tour.
What is the significance of the image of a ship called Mountain on the High Seas?
The Journey for Life was announced in October 2020 through a communiqué entitled “A Mountain on the High Seas.” We learned later that this Mountain referred to the boat that would be manned by Squadron 421, the Zapatista maritime delegation, which would be “the advance guard” on the route to the deconquest of Europe. The spirit of the Mountain took the body of another mythical being of the resistance, the steel rat – the German ship Stahlratte – which left Isla Mujeres (Quintana Roo) in April 2020 with a small delegation of seven Zapatistas on board composed of four women, two men and one non-binary person.
Even prior to the communiqué of A Mountain on the High Seas, the Zapatistas took the image of the boat to create the symbol and the imaginary of the journey. In the communiqués prior to the beginning of the journey of the Mountain, the communities already shared with us the process of creating the wooden canoes, made in the Caracol de la Realidad and brought to Europe on the ship La Montaña. These cayucos have an enormous symbolic and historical weight not only for the journey but also for the Zapatista resistance. The cayucos tell the stories of the communities: the Mayan roots of the Zapatistas and represent the history of the clandestinity of the Zapatista movement and life in the Caracol with its principles of autonomy, as explained in the communiqué entitled La Ruta de Ixchel:
The cayucos (dugout canoes) represent four stages of our being as the Zapatistas that we are:
- Our culture as a native people with Mayan roots. It is the largest cayuco in which the other three can be stored. It is a tribute to our ancestors.
- The stage of the clandestinity and the uprising. It is the cayuco that follows the first one in size, and is a tribute to those who have fallen since January 1, 1994.
- The stage of autonomy. It is the third in size, from largest to smallest, and is a tribute to our peoples, regions and zones that, in resistance and rebellion, have raised and are raising Zapatista autonomy.
- The Zapatista childhood stage. It is the smallest cayuco that has been painted and decorated by Zapatista boys and girls with the figures and colors they wanted.
The idea of creating the image of the Zapatista boat for the publicity of the Journey for Life from Europe came from a graphic designer from Madrid, an activist in solidarity with the Zapatista movement since the uprising of 1994. His intention was simple: to retake the graphics and meaning of the Zapatista “poetics,” already shown in Beatriz Autora’s paintings, with the hope of a journey in the midst of a pandemic. The design was based on a vindicating mural painted decades ago in the Zapatista community of La Garrucha which, like the German ship Stahlratte, was reconditioned for the voyage to Europe as a collage including other iconic images of Zapatista solidarity art. This image, which spread through social networks, would be used in all media and would become the logo of the Zapatista Tour, the icon of the Journey for Life, also used by the Zapatista communities themselves for the production of embroidery to be sold in the cooperatives of San Cristobal de Las Casas.
In Europe, in addition to being used in social networks for dissemination and solidarity campaigns, such as the “tweetstorms” or the pressure for delegates to have their passports processed, it was adapted to graphic formats to follow the journey of Squadron 421 and later the Zapatista Tour. For example, the French illustrator Lisa Lugrin – as part of the initiatives organized by the French Communication Commission – created an illustrated comic book about the journey of Squadron 421. From April 2021, Lisa drew the Zapatista communiqués working with other members of the commission. Taking the form of comic episodes, these texts were first published in the magazines Mediapart and Lundimatin, and then in an autonomous publication in support of the Tour, documenting the Squadron’s itinerary, within the framework of the journey for Life and some of the meetings between the members of the Zapatista delegation and the European collectives: the reception of the Squadron in Paris, the women’s meeting that took place in July 2021 at the ZAD of Notre-Dame des Landes (France), and the demonstration of August 13, 2021 that took place in Madrid, in connection with the date of the 500th anniversary of the fall of Tenochtitlan (Mexico).
As the episodes were produced, Lisa and her collaborators began to feel the need to tell not only the present, but also to bring to light the past and history, as well as the principles of Zapatismo through drawing. Thus, several episodes of the small publication that was produced are dedicated to the clandestine period of Zapatismo or to the organization of autonomy in the Caracoles. To do so, the artist uses graphic devices that allow her to cross temporalities and travel to other geographies, based on the communiqué that speaks of the cayucos, entitled La Ruta de Ixchel, which we have already mentioned. To illustrate the communiqué, Lisa created a graphic environment where the elements drawn on the cayucos come to life and tell the story of Zapatismo, so the cayucos allow her to make the link between something that was happening -the Journey for Life- and the past of the Zapatista movement.
In following the trajectory of this image, we must consider not only the richness of imagery it summons and how it has been transposed from one media to another, but also how it has driven solidarity actions, in which the boat has gone from being a symbol to a means of action. For example, Mexican networks supporting the Zapatista journey and some artists invited civil society to produce paper boats in Mexico City’s Zócalo on May 2, 2021 to support the Travesía del barco por la vida and announce the imminent arrival of La Montaña in Europe. Several artists and collectives joined this initiative, such as Antonio Gritón, who also supported the Zapatista Tour with the sale of his works. Others, such as the street artist Gran OM, supported the trip with the production of posters and communication elements for the journey to Europe.
The image of the ship also became a symbol of the struggle for a more just world through sailing, which brought together a particular set of actors from the maritime world around the Zapatista voyage, including NGOs working in the Mediterranean Sea to rescue migrants, and people passionate about the sea, advocates of a culture of solidarity, who fight for the emancipation of women through sailing. For example, within the framework of the Naval Commission, formed by European collectives to accompany the Voyage for Life, a feminist flotilla was organized to give visibility to women sailors in an environment where women’s emancipation is a crucial issue.
Original article by Francesco Cozzolino from Mujeres y disidencias de la Sexta en la Otra Europa y Abya Ayala published in El Salto July 21st, 2024.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.