On New Year’s Day, 2021, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) released a statement entitled “Part One: A DECLARATION … FOR LIFE” in which they make known that hundreds of organizations, artists, writers, intellectuals and people from more than 30 countries, the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) and the Indigenous Government Council (CIG), as well as the EZLN, agreed to fight for humanity in the five continents. It announced that they will carry out “meetings, dialogues, exchanges of ideas, experiences, analysis and evaluations among those of us who are committed, from different conceptions and in different fields, in the struggle for life.”
The statement, addressed to “TO THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD” and “TO PEOPLE WHO STRUGGLE ON THE FIVE CONTINENTS”, highlights that during “these previous months, we have established contact with each other by various means. We are women, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, transvestites, transsexuals, intersex, queer and more, men, groups, collectives, associations, organizations, social movements, indigenous peoples, neighborhood associations, communities and a long etcetera that gives us identity” and they recalled the differences and distinctions between people as well as the things that unite them.
For example, “the certainty that the fight for humanity is worldwide. Just as the ongoing destruction does not recognize borders, nationalities, flags, languages, cultures, races; so the struggle for humanity is everywhere, always.” And “That we take on as ours the pains of the earth: violence against women; the persecution and contempt of those who are different in their affective, emotional, and sexual identity; the annihilation of children; genocide against the natives; the racism; militarism; the exploitation; the dispossession; the destruction of nature.” The understanding “that a system is responsible for these pains. The executioner is an exploitative, patriarchal, pyramidal, racist, thieving and criminal system: capitalism.” With “the knowledge that it is not possible to reform this system, educate it, attenuate it, file it down, domesticate it, humanize it.”
They stated that the activities in the European continent will take place between the months of July and October of the year 2021, with the direct participation of a Mexican delegation made up of the CNI-CIG, the People’s Front in Defense of Water and Land of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala, and the EZLN, while, at later dates to be specified, meetings will be held in Asia, Africa, Oceania and America.
For more information in Spanish:
Primera Parte: UNA DECLARACIÓN… POR LA VIDA (Enlace Zapatista, 1 de enero de 2021)
Imposible, domesticar el capitalismo; hay que darle fin: EZLN (La Jornada. 2 de enero de 2021)
A 27 años del EZLN “La supervivencia de la humanidad depende de la destrucción del capitalismo” (El Universal, 1 de enero de 2021)
For more information from SIPAZ:
Internacional/Nacional/Chiapas: EZLN saca nuevo comunicado “Segunda Parte: LA CANTINA.” (December 30, 2020)
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