Marichuy’s candidacy, the Zapatista tour of Europe and the new reorganization of Zapatista autonomy are part of this new installment of a series of texts with which to learn about and celebrate three decades of Zapatismo.
This text of the series 30th Anniversary of the EZLN Uprising opens with the “surprise” that was the candidacy of Marichuy as an independent candidate for the presidency of Mexico in 2018, continues with the creation of new Autonomous Municipalities and Caracoles in the Zapatista zone and the Journey for Life of the rebels of southeastern Mexico to Europe, Slumil K’ajxemk’op. And it doesn’t end, but continues into the future: the new reorganization of Zapatista autonomy and “the commons,” ready to move ahead and looking forward to at least one hundred and twenty years…
In 2016, from October 9 to 14, the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), held an important meeting, divided into two parts, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of its constitution, on October 12, 1996. The first part of this meeting closed with the issuance of a communiqué signed jointly by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and the National Indigenous Congress: “May the earth tremble at its core. The text summarizes the struggles and resistances of the indigenous peoples “to stop the storm and the capitalist offensive that does not cease but becomes more aggressive every day, and which has become a civilizing threat not only for the indigenous peoples and peasants but also for the peoples of the cities,” and considering that this offensive will not stop, but on the contrary, will intensify, they announce that a referendum would be held in each of the communities about an agreement reached at the meeting: “to name an indigenous council of government whose word will be materialized by an indigenous woman, a delegate of the CNI as an independent candidate who will run on behalf of the National Indigenous Congress and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in the 2018 electoral process for the presidency of this country.” This concluded the first part of the meeting, which was to continue at the end of the year, once the consultation had been carried out.
The proposal, which was surprising for many sectors of the national and international population, made its intentions very clear: “We reaffirm that our struggle is not for power, we do not seek it; but we will call on the native peoples and civil society to organize ourselves to stop this destruction, to strengthen ourselves in our resistance and rebelliousness, that is, in the defense of the life of each person, each family, collective, community or neighborhood. To build peace and justice by re-strengthening ourselves from below, from where we are what we are.”
On January 1, 2017, the Declaration of the V National Indigenous Congress was made public under the name “Y retembló! Informe desde el epicentro…” in which the result of the people’s referendum was made known; they agreed to appoint an Indigenous Governing Council with a woman as spokesperson who, in turn, would be an independent candidate to run in the 2018 electoral process for the presidency of Mexico. On May 28, it was announced that the person chosen for this task was María de Jesús Patricio, also known as Marichuy. During 2017 and the first months of 2018, Marichuy traveled the country, promoting the collection of signatures so that her name would be on the ballot papers, but, above all, to support the organization, struggle and resistance of indigenous peoples and of everyone, everyone, everyone who resists from below and to the left. Although all this work served to involve many people and sectors, beyond the indigenous peoples and the National Indigenous Congress in a civil, peaceful and inclusive struggle, the number of signatures necessary for María de Jesús Patricio to appear on the ballot was not attained.
Those elections were won, with a large majority of votes, by Andrés Manuel López Obrador (who will finish his presidential term next December, 2024), candidate of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA). Since 2017, the Indigenous Council of Government, with its spokesperson Marichuy and accompanied by the Zapatista communities, has not stopped proposing and strengthening initiatives for the defense of indigenous peoples, but also of natural resources and territory in Mexico.
María de Jesus Patricio being embraced by the Zapatista communities in Oventic Chiapas, at the beginning of her campaign to collect signatures for her presidential candidacy (October, 2017) DALIRI OROPEZA
With the passing of the years and the silent political and organizational work of the Zapatistas, the advances in their self-government became more and more evident; a health system very focused on preventive medicine, ranging from small clinics in the communities to larger regional clinics, including some specific, such as the Women’s Clinic Comandanta Ramona, in Caracol de La Garrucha, as well as clinical analysis laboratories or ophthalmology consultations, all attended by hundreds of health promoters. Education does not lag behind; small community schools and high schools, attended by education promoters, in a teaching very close to the day to day work in the communities. The same happens with justice, where non-Zapatistas go very often, because there problems are solved without money or “bribes” because, as the compañeros and compañeras say, Zapatista justice is done no matter who you are.
All this organizational work resulted in the need to reorganize the Zapatista territory and in August 2019, the EZLN announced the creation of seven new Caracoles, increasing from five to twelve, and four more Autonomous Municipalities in the areas of Chicomuselo, Motozintla, Amatenango del Valle and Chilón. In the year of the pandemic, 2020, a Red Alert was decreed and the Caracoles are closed by covid-19, not without a reminder not to drop the struggle and not to lose human contact “but to temporarily change the forms to know that we are compañeros, compañeras, compañeros, hermanos, hermanas, hermanos.”
On October 5 of that same year, the communiqué “Una Montaña en Alta Mar” was made public; in it they affirm, once again, that “we must take to the streets again, yes, but to fight. Because, as we have said before, life, the struggle for life, is not an individual matter, but a collective one” and they say that, after a reflection and seeing that ‘it is time again for hearts to dance, and that neither their music nor their steps should be those of lamentation and resignation’, they have decided that “various Zapatista delegations, men, women and others of the color of our land, will go out to travel the world, we will walk or sail to remote lands, seas and skies, seeking not difference, nor superiority, not an insult, and much less forgiveness and pity.” And the European continent was chosen as the first destination for this tour, known as the “Tour for Life.”
On January 1, 2021, the Declaration for Life was made public, signed by the EZLN, the National Indigenous Congress and thousands of collectives and people from all geographies in which the participation of a Mexican delegation made up of the CNI-CIG, the Peoples’ Front in Defense of Water and Land of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala, and the EZLN, was specified. The first months of 2021 were spent in preparations, in Zapatista territory and in Europe, for the trip; Many inconveniences had to be overcome, among them, the travel restrictions of the different countries, but finally, an advance party of the compañeros and compañeras who were to come, Squadron 421, formed by seven Zapatistas, four women, two men and one other, boarded a ship called “La Montaña” on April 30, 2021, and left for Europe, where they arrived on June 20, on the coast of Baiona, Galicia, Spain, where they landed two days later, welcomed by hundreds of people at the foot of the sea. There, Marijose said: “In the name of the women, children, men, elders and, of course, other Zapatistas, I declare that the name of this land, which its natives now call ‘Europe,’ will henceforth be called: SLUMIL K’AJXEMK’OP, which means ‘Insubmissive Land,’ or ‘Land that does not resign itself, that does not give up.’ And this is how it will be known by locals and strangers alike as long as there is someone here who will not give up, who will not sell out and who will not give in.”
Squadron 421 visited several European cities and participated in the Meeting “Many struggles to live, one heart to fight!” which brought together women, trans, inter and non-binary people from all over Europe for two days at the ZAD (Zone to Defend) in Notre Dame des Landes, France. And on August 13, five hundred years after the fall of Mexico-Tenochtitlan to the indigenous-Spanish alliance, under the command of Hernán Cortés, Squadron 421 gave a historic speech in the Plaza de Colón in Madrid in which they stated: “We do not come to bring prescriptions, to impose visions and strategies, to promise bright and instantaneous futures, full plazas, immediate solutions. Nor do we come to summon you to marvelous unions. We come to listen to you,” because, according to the thinking of the Zapatista peoples,” in every dissidence, in every rebellion, in every resistance, there is a cry for life. And, according to us Zapatista peoples, that is what it is all about: life.”
Finally, after overcoming the bureaucratic problems of the Mexican government, which tried to deny them a passport, on September 14, 2021, a delegation of almost two hundred people, which they called “La Extemporánea,” arrived in the city of Vienna, Austria, joined a few days later by a delegation from the National Indigenous Congress-Indigenous Council of Government and the People’s Front in Defense of Land and Water. For three months, “La Extemporánea” toured Europe, meeting with hundreds of collectives and individuals; listening, learning and, above all, teaching. The delegation returned to Mexico in early December.
In March of the following year, thousands of Zapatistas filled the streets of San Cristobal de las Casas, Ocosingo, Palenque, Las Margaritas, Altamirano and Yajalon, in the face of the war in Ukraine, with the slogan “Against all wars: all arts, all resistances, all rebellions!”
A few weeks before celebrating the 30th anniversary of the public appearance of the EZLN, in a series of 20 communiqués, a change in the autonomous structures was announced, with the disappearance of the Good Government Councils and the Autonomous Municipalities and the creation of Local Autonomous Governments. And, in addition, with a long-term view, thinking not in the next 30 years, but in the next 120 years, they propose the constitution of “the common” and “non-property”: “to establish extensions of the recovered land as common. That is, without ownership. Neither private, nor ejido, nor communal, nor federal, nor state, nor corporate, nor anything else. A non-ownership of the land. As they say: “land without papers.” Then, in those lands that are going to be defined, if they ask who owns that land or who is the owner, the answer will be: “nobody’s,” that is to say “of the commons.”
And that is where the Zapatistas are, 30 years after their public appearance and 40 years of their existence, building the bases of defense against the storm provoked by capitalism, which we already have over our heads.
Thirty and forty years of history are only the first steps of a project that walks looking to the future. What has been told here is just an outline of what has happened and hopefully it will serve not only to know and remember, but also to be like those lines that point out and anticipate the way on a foggy road. There are many stories left to tell, of the past and of the future, from those dreams imagined by men and women like Dení in the seventies, to those imagined today by Dení, five years old, daughter of a Zapatista indigenous insurgent and an insurgent who will have her future reflected in the Denís who are yet to come for at least the next 120 years. Little by little, these stories will be told.
But for now, as Subcomandante Marcos said, back in a distant 1994: “Cheers and more of those dreams that can give birth to realities.”
Original text by Lola Sepúlveda published in El Salto on September 1st, 2024.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.