RvsR: Greeting the Twentieth Anniversary of the Zapatista Uprising

Compañeras and compañeros of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation:

It has been twenty years since your uprising against exploitation, plunder, contempt. That January First of 1994 you showed us the other Mexico nonconforming and fed up. You showed us the Indian Mexico, which struggled for its dignity. You showed us a Mexico that rose up with its centuries of resistance, an example of the human dignity that not even twelve days of bombardment, that not even a brutal and enormous military offensive could destroy, that not even the criminal paramilitary maneuvers, subsequently used against you, and that have been maintained to the present day, have managed to weaken, that not even the silence with which the governments and the powerful uselessly have wanted to bury you, have managed to quiet. On the contrary, we have seen how all those military tricks and counterinsurgents have strengthened your rebellious dignity, that rebellious dignity which we admire so much.

During these twenty years you also have shown us that the construction is possible—despite the pessimisms, despite the many political theorists and the ruses of so many intellectuals who have denied any exit from this catastrophe which is called capitalism, in its neoliberal phase—in practice, of other forms of life; of other forms of social and economic relations; of another way of doing politics, contrary to totalitarianisms, not only from the right, which attempt, no matter what, to impose a uniform unity; you have shown another way of doing politics, whose strength is based in the diversity of doings and beings, of struggles, of resistances. You have demonstrated in these twenty years that the construction of new thoughts is possible, that everything is not said, and that much more can be said, beyond eurocentrist Western thought, that more can be said from the colors, smells, flavors of our lands, from below, from the excluded of this system that we resist.

Zapatista compañeras and compañeros, it honors us to share a struggle with you within the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, within our struggles, actions, and resistances that the members of the Red Contra la Represión y por la Solidaridad maintain daily, that although small, believe us, you are present.

We celebrate these twenty years because it is necessary to always celebrate when human dignity rises up against injustices, neglect, death, we celebrate your uprising because we celebrate life, a life distant from plunder, repression, exploitation, and contempt. Receive our hugs, our smiles, our admiration from every member of this Network.

¡ Viva el EZLN !

Against plunder and repression: Solidarity!

Red Contra la Represión y por la Solidaridad (RvsR)

Translated from Spanish by Henry Gales.

Originally published on Dec. 31, 2013.

Click here for original Spanish text.