Words of resistance and rebellion.

Originally published in Spanish by the EZLN ************************************ Translated by irlandesa, based on transcription of recording [Comandante Zebedeo's words in Oventik, August 9, 2003] Brothers and sisters: Compañeros and compañeras: After so many rumors that the EZLN was already finished, now you can see, here we are again, in the same struggle, improving the paths of resistance. In the 20th century, they covered us up, by making us believe that the times of misery, poverty, paternalism, slavery and the Holy Inquisition had passed. Today, great civil society still has the same sorrows. We saw the new century arrive with the same brutal contents as in the past. These times of globalization are imposing a new Holy Inquisition in another way. Today, the sins of poor people are not being paid with whips. We are paying with sophisticated weapons which have been specially made for those who rebel against globalization's plans. All of us are paying for this, including children and old persons. World globalization, with its new world order, is the same as saying: "World humiliation of the peoples of the world." Globalization, with its free trade treaties, World Trade Organization and NAFTA, are implements and means for destroying each country's patrimony, sovereignty and culture. We can no longer act as if we don't see that this war, and globalization's worldwide threat, is seeking humiliation and submission. Even someone who is illiterate could easily understand this situation. The consequence of the evil - the parasite of world civil society - is that every day the poor are becoming poorer, and the number of unemployed is increasing by millions, leaving them torn of all hope. This globalization has been thanks to its greedy plan. Because the peoples of the world are learning from it to fight, to resist and to organize themselves in order to put a stop to domination and invasion. One can now read, and see, that the peoples of the world have stopped being spectators. As time goes by, they are becoming important actors in the building of a world where many worlds fit. As is already known the world over, the globalization war of the bad governments has taken death and destruction quite far from here, to a place which was rich in the culture and history of humanity. There, the Iraqi people are now demonstrating that the issue is not about changing local tyrants for foreign tyrants, but about uniting democracy and justice with liberty, sovereignty and independence. The Iraqi people, resisting every day, are knocking down the already weak statue of the British-US military victory. We would also like to repeat a greeting which we have already given before. The greeting to the political and cultural struggle of the Basque people. And I will clearly repeat: "To the political and cultural struggle of the Basque people," because then some journalists will come out with their lie that we support ETA, and even a nitwit who sings rock will say it. And so we send greetings to the political and cultural struggle of the Basque people. And especially now, whenever any person from that country is persecuted, harassed and treated with contempt in any part of the world. We know that these are difficult times for those people, but we also know that they will know how to resist and be creative in order to get through it. We cannot do much, but we also are shouting, with hope, "Gora Euskal Herria," which will never be extinguished, not even in the prisons and the Spanish government's torture cells. And we are saying it very loudly, so that person who is taking a vacation from his work of closing down newspapers and banning political organizations can hear it. And now our word goes to Europe, to France. At this time, we would like to send a zapatista greeting to the brothers and sisters in France, who are currently gathered together in a place called "Les Place" in Larzac, France. There are French campesino brothers there who are fighting against the globalization of hunger and GM crops and against the power's war. We send greetings to the Southeastern Collectives in Solidarity with Chiapas (Ariège, Aude, Bordeaux, Lot, Pau-Oloron, Tarn and Toulouse): to the Mut-Vitz Network of the Southeast; to Americasol; to the Support Committee to the Peoples of Chiapas in Struggle, Paris, and to the "Building a World in Solidarity" association; to the National Campesino Federation and to all those organizations which are gathered there. I do not know if they are listening to us right now, but I am certain that, even though they are far away, they will feel the embrace which the smallest of their brothers, the zapatistas, are sending them. And, a little closer, to the southeast of our southeast, winds of support and hope are arriving from dignified Argentina. We answer them with the humble wind which we are, and our embrace crosses all of Latin America just to say do not feel alone, with the words "brothers, sisters." And there are a people in the Caribbean who are in the sights of the war of world conquest, the people of Cuba. Our admiration and our respect go out to those people, and we, small as we are, cannot do more. We are also well aware that the plans to attack the island of Cuba are not lies. But neither is the decision by that people a lie, the decision to resist and decide, without foreign interference, their fate. That, and nothing else, is sovereignty. Brothers and sisters: There is a country of noble and good people in the world. Bad governs in that country also, but, beneath, rebel dignity speaks in Italian and thinks of the future. The new worlds which are being built there and here are learning together to say "fratelli" and "hermano," which mean the same thing in Italian and in Spanish, "tomorrow." And now we would like to send special greetings to the people of North America, who rose up from the rubble of the twin towers of New York in order to oppose a war which was driven by economic interests and hidden behind the pain and courage provoked by the attacks of September 11, 2001. And we would like to send a very large embrace, as large as our hope, to the Mexican brothers who are suffering and working in foreign lands, not because they want to, but because the neoliberal dispossession has thrown them off their own lands. Greetings, then, to the Mexican blood which throbs above the Rio Grande. We would like to mention that in the coming days there will be a very important meeting in Cancun, Mexico. And we are not referring to the meeting of the World Trade Organization, that body which commands the new world war against humanity. No, we are talking about the meeting which will have people from all over the planet, in order to repeat the "no" to the exclusionary world of money and to affirm that another world is possible. It is our understanding that there will be a meeting from September 1 - 7 concerning alternative media and technology, and from September 8-9, a campesino forum. And, on September 9, within a month, there will be mobilizations in Cancun and throughout the world against those who think they are the owners of the planet. In September, the word of the zapatistas will go to Cancun and to the planet, in the method and manner which shall be decided. Brothers and sisters: We would also like to send greetings and to embrace, with special affection and admiration, all those worlds which there are in the world. We do not know the countries, but we do know some people who are fighting in them, and we have learned, through their words and their actions, that dignity and rebellion have nothing to do with flags, languages, types of exchange and passports. We are telling those different worlds that from here, from the mountains of the Mexican southeast, they are not alone. Brothers and sisters: Let us leave racism and exclusion behind, let us see a common path that will lead us towards the hope for a more human life. In order to build this new world, it is necessary and important that all men and women make ourselves children of rebellion and resistance, and realize that our wages will be being the first to try out the modern jails built by the so-called governments. Which will mean then, not to lose sight of the world-wide global monster. And these have been our words, and what follows is dancing and struggling. Viva world resistance! Viva world rebellion! Vivan the poor peoples of the world! From Oventik, "Resistance and Rebellion for Humanity" Caracol. By the Clandestine, Revolutionary Indigenous Committee - General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Mexico, August 9, 2003.