“We do not scream out of grief. We do not cry out of sorrow. We do not murmur in resignation.
Our voice is so That Those Who are absent find the path of return.
So That They Know That Even Though They are here They are absent.
So That They Do not Forget That They are not forgotten.
Because of this: from pain, from rage, for truth, for justice, for Ayotzinapa and for all of the Ayotzinapas That wound the calendars and geographies from below.
This is why we resist.
This is why we rebel.
Because the time will come When Those Who will owe us everything Have to pay.”
“Women, regardless of their race, creed, color or political affiliation, have the right to participate in the revolutionary struggle in any way that their desire and capacity determine.”
It was New Year’s Day of 1994. As dawn was about to break, a group of indigenous Mayan guerrillas launched a coordinated attack on cities and towns across the southern state of Chiapas, Mexico. They called themselves the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and wore black ski masks and red paisley bandanas known as paliacates.
The United States had just signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was supposed to decrease trade barriers and increase business investment between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. It would also flood Mexico with imported corn, which the Zapatistas and other subsistence farmers believed would be their death, quite literally, and said so.
The Zapatistas, armed with machetes and antiquated rifles, took the municipal palace of the quaint mountain city of San Cristóbal de las Casas. It is estimated that between 600 and 2,000 troops, of humble farming backgrounds and largely between 18 and 30 years old, almost all indigenous Mayans from the state of Chiapas, participated and read a declaration of war from the Lacandon Jungle, proclaiming “Ya basta,” which translates to “Enough is enough.” They declared war on the army, the state and federal government, and the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which had been in power for 65 years.
“Tierra y Libertad”, Melanie Cervantes, 15” x 23” , 5-Color handmade screenprint, Amate Paper, Printed in Oakland, 2012
Tierra y Libertad is a reflection of the new generation of farmers working land within autonomous communities of the Zapatistas. Tierra y Libertad is a slogan that was popularized during the turn of the century by Mexican Revolutionaries like Emiliano Zapata who were fighting to give the land back to the indigenous population from whom it was expropriated. The white hat is also a subtle nod to Nicaraguan revolutionary Augusto Sandino.There is also a repeating gold pattern of maize in the back ground which symbolizes how corn is central to the dietary, social and spiritual life of indigenous people in Mexico.
The prints are produced on amate paper (a paper that has been made in the continent since before colonial invasion) that was hand carried in from Mexico. This is a very small edition of 10 prints on amate paper**. We also have four print on birch wood.
**Each of the prints is unique because the amate’s marbled design varies from print to print.
I love how every aspect of this is meaningful and related to the piece!
I made this Rolex Subcomandante (top) photo alteration inspired by this presumably fake Rolex ad featuring Che Guevara (second photo). I’m not sure what the original source is.
Subcomandante Marcos does (or did) wear watches and they appear to be Casio (sometimes the Casio F91W-1 as in the third photo) and maybe Timex watches, often two at a time:
I arrived in that jungle with one watch and the other dates from when the ceasefire began. When the two times coincide it will mean that Zapatismo is finished as an army and that another stage, another watch and another time has started.
You may have seen reports about U.S.-backed forces liberating the city of Raqqa from Daesh. What no one has talked about is that those forces are the YPG/J, whom I’m writing a significant portion of my thesis on.
The ecologically sustainable, feminist, and democratic movement in Rojava [N. Syria], inspired by the imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, and his transition from Marxist-Leninism to democratic confederalism in a tradition similar to the Zapatistas in Chiapas and based on theories on social ecology and libertarian municipalism of the late Murray Bookchin, should seriously be given more credit and celebrated more.
Telecomunicaciones Indígenas Comunitarias A.C. – a nonprofit telcoms company operated by and for indigenous groups in Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Puebla, and Veracruz – has received a license to operate cellular services in at least 356 municipalities. It’s the first time the Mexican telcoms regulator has given a operations license to an indigenous social group.
TIC is the sequel to a network created by Rhizomatica, who installed internet-based telephony in remote communities serviced only by expensive payphones, lowering the cost of calls by as much as 98%. TIC is a co-op venture with Rhizomatica, and the communities it will serve with high-speed wireless telephony and internet connectivity are both underserved and overbilled by Mexico’s for-profit telcoms companies.
