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The Walk of the Zapatista Caracol

The Walk of the Zapatista Caracol

In August 2019, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) announced the end of the “Samir Flores Lives” campaign and went on the offensive, expanding their word and their actions of resistance and rebellion. 

As a result, the Zapatista caracoles and their Good Government Councils have grown from 5 to 12. They have also created four new autonomous municipalities, which now number 31. Similarly, they reported the creation of the Centers of Autonomous Resistance and Zapatista Rebellion (CRAREZ), a new structure in the world they’ve built. With photographs and videos, the EZLN showed the world its most recent expansion. It was only the beginning.

During the month of December, the Zapatistas carried out several activities they called the Celebration of Life. The Celebration began on December 7th with the second edition of the “Puy Ta Cuxlejaltic Film Festival” in the new caracol of Tulan Kaw (Strong Horse). More than 50 films were screened and workshops were held there with the Tercios Compas, as the communication collectives from the Zapatista bases are known.

Next was the first dance festival, “Dance Another World,” from December 16 to 20 in the Zapatista caracoles of Tulan Kaw and Jacinto Canek. More than 80 dancers participated, including members of the Zapatista communities who have made the arts one of their main ways of life.

In that context, the Fourth National Assembly of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) and the Indigenous Governing Council (CIG) took place, as well as the Forum in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth, both in the Jacinto Canek caracol.

During the assembly, dozens of indigenous communities shared their diagnosis and reiterated their opposition to megaprojects such as the ill-named Maya Train, the Trans-Isthmic Corridor, the Morelos Integral Project. They concluded that the neoliberal war is deepening with the current administration and that the business dealings that make up part of that war—organized crime, real estate industry, mining, agribusiness, tourism megaprojects, energy industry—continue to be deployed throughout the country. They reported that as a result of this war, 11 members of the CNI were killed in 2019 for defending their territories and opposing repression.

More than 50 organizations from Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Kurdistan, and Ecuador participated in the forum. The information that was shared helped better measure the capitalist system’s level of global destruction but also helped identify points of articulation and common strategies of resistance.

In the final days of December, in the seedbed “In the Footprints of Comandanta Ramona,” in the caracol of Morelia, the Second International Encounter of Women Who Struggle was held. More than 5,000 women came from at least 49 countries, which for three days shared pain, experiences, and joys; strengthened their solidarity networks; and made agreements to continue fighting against patriarchy.

Finally, also in the Morelia caracol, the EZLN commemorated the 26th anniversary of the start of the war against oblivion. There, Subcomandante Moisés reiterated the position of the Zapatistas: they are willing to die if necessary to defend their autonomy. At the same time, he raised an urgent debate: progress and development for whom and at what cost?

No political force in Mexico, and very few in the world, are able to guarantee the necessary infrastructure to carry out these activities. We must not forget that the Zapatistas do not accept resources—of any kind—from governments, corporations, or NGOs. Everything was sustained with resources from the Zapatistas themselves. With this Celebration of Life, the EZLN not only showed its great capacity for national and international convocation, it also showed the great size of its organization, its territorial expansion, and its willingness to dialogue with those who aspire to build a world where many worlds may fit.

In the midst of the capitalist storm or civilizational collapse that is underway, the Zapatistas do not take refuge in their islands of resistance to see the world burn. On the contrary, they are committed to dialogue and weaving national and international networks with those who fight against capitalism and patriarchy.

Together with the women who fight and the original peoples who resist, but also with the oppressed and exploited peoples that accompany them, the EZLN is committed to life… And in its commitment to life, this army of men and women gives a central place to the arts: the seed in which humanity will be reborn.

The EZLN today is stronger than 26 years ago. Every step taken, every encounter, every initiative has provided them with a diagnosis of the current world for which they have built an alternative. From there they launch a new question: What are you willing to do to stop the war against humanity? 

They have already given us their response.

Originally published in La Jornada. English translation by Semillas collective in New York and Semillero 805 collective in California.