Poster for “Compartir el Comparte por la Humanidad”
The Zapatista “CompArte por la Humanidad” festival initiative began on July 19 with an event at the teachers’ and popular camp that blocks the exit to the highway to Tuxtla Gutierrez in San Cristobal de Las Casas, where local artists and spectators arrived, both nationals and from other parts of the world.
After the welcoming ceremony, the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) in the highlands of Chiapas, which heads the movement, left the word to Berta Nava, mother of Julio Cesar Ramirez Nava, who was murdered on the night of September 26, 2014 in Iguala (Guerrero), and Omar Garcia, ex-student teacher of Ayotzinapa and survivor of that night. Both opened the “CompArte por la Humanidad” festival, remembering “the missing and fallen of the night in Iguala, to whose pain is now added that of the massacred on June 19 in Oaxaca.” 19 pieces of poetry, music, acrobatics and theater were presented as well as two projections of indigenous resistance in the Cauca (Colombia) and the Kurdish revolution.
“CompArte” will be held in the Indigenous Center for Integral Training-University of the Earth, Chiapas (Cideci-Unitierra), based in San Cristobal de Las Casas from July 23-30, and to date 1,127 artists from around the country and 318 from other nations have registered. On opening its doors to the festival, Cideci-Unitierra said in the words of the Zapatistas that “the arts are a hope for humanity and that it is in the most difficult moments, when there is more disappointment and helplessness, that only the arts are able to celebrate humanity.”
The compas of the five caracoles of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) had suspended their participation in the festival from July 17 to 22 to show solidarity with the teachers’ movement. Nevertheless, they invited the participants and attendees of CompArte to Oventic on July 29… “It will not be everything that was prepared by us, but it will be nothing less than this: A gift we want to give you. Maybe you’ll like it, maybe you won’t. But we are sure that you will find sounds, colors, lights and shadows that have no aspiration other than to make you listen, watch and feel the ‘thank you’ we embrace you with.”
For more information in Spanish:
Compartir contra la Represión: Recuento de desalojo al bloqueo magisterial en San Cristóbal de las Casas (Centro de medios libres, 21 de julio de 2016)
Pliego de acuerdos de la Asamblea Popular de los Altos de Chiapas e invitación a recibir el CompArte en el bloqueo magisterial (Centro de medios libres, 19 de julio del 2016)
¿La geografía? Oventik. ¿El calendario? 29 de julio del 2016(Enlace zapatista, 17 de julio del 2016)
CNTE Altos de Chiapas recibirá a artistas del CompArte (Centro de medios libres, 17 de julio del 2016)
Festival CompArte sigue en marcha del 23 al 30 de julio (La Jornada, 09 de julio de 2016)
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