Journey for Life

Last updated

The Journey for Life is a tour organized by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation with the aim of visiting all five continents. In 2021, the tour visited Europe.

Contents

Planning

In October 2020, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation announced a plan for the Journey for Life with a communique entitled "Part Six: A Mountain on the High Seas". Twenty years after the March of the Colour of the Earth, in which the Zapatistas made a tour of Mexico, they planned to visit different countries in order to meet other grassroots, left-wing groups and share experiences. [1] The Journey of Life aims to visit all five continents. [2]

Europe chapter

Five hundred years after the Conquest of Mexico, seven people set off from Isla Mujeres on 2 May 2021 in a boat called La Montaña, saying their trip to Europe was a symbolic invasion. [3] [4] They had travelled from Chiapas to the Caribbean and aimed to arrive in Vigo in north-east Spain before 13 August, the date marking five hundred years since Tenochtitlan was captured by Spanish forces. [3] [5] The crew of seven was composed of two men, four women and one transgender person (referred to as "otroa" in Spanish). The 4-2-1 formation resulted in the crew being known as the 421st Squadron, in an echo of the 201st Fighter Squadron, a Mexican Air Force which fought internationally in World War II. [2] The boat got to Vigo on 21 June. [2]

The Zapatistas met activist groups in Barcelona, Madrid, Mérida and Valencia in Spain and next went to France, where they visited Aubervilliers, Montreuil and the Zone to Defend at Notre-Dame-des-Landes near Nantes. [2] They also planned to visit Sámi people protesting against a high-speed train route being constructed between Rovaniemi in Lapland and Kirkenes in Norway and groups in Italy mobilising against the Trans Adriatic Pipeline. [2] After four months, Squadron 421 returned to Mexico City International Airport in September, meeting members of the National Indigenous Congress and not giving any statement to the mainstream media. [6]

In a second phase, the "Extemporaneous delegation" of 170 Zapatistas flew to Vienna in Austria, on 15 September. It split up into smaller groups which went off to visit any places which had made an invitation. In Sweden, the Zapatistas visited Gothenburg, Jönköping, Malmö, Östersund, Stockholm and Uppsala. [7]

Related Research Articles

Chiapas State of Mexico

Chiapas, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas, is one of the states that make up the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 124 municipalities as of September 2017 and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Other important population centers in Chiapas include Ocosingo, Tapachula, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Comitán, and Arriaga. It is the southernmost state in Mexico, and it borders the states of Oaxaca to the west, Veracruz to the northwest, and Tabasco to the north, and the Petén, Quiché, Huehuetenango, and San Marcos departments of Guatemala to the east and southeast. Chiapas has a coastline on the Pacific Ocean to the southwest.

North America Continent

North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be described as the northern subcontinent of a single continent, America. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean. Because it is on the North American Tectonic Plate, Greenland is included as part of North America geographically.

Americas Landmass comprising the totality of North and South America

The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.

Indigenous peoples Ethnic groups descended from and identified with the original inhabitants of a given region

Indigenous peoples, also referred to as First peoples, First nations, Aboriginal peoples, Native peoples, Indigenous natives, endemic populations, or Autochthonous peoples, are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original peoples. The term Indigenous was first, in its modern context, used by Europeans, who used it to differentiate the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the European settlers, and the African Americans who were brought to the Americas due to enslavement, or who immigrated as free people. The term may have first been used in this context by Sir Thomas Browne in 1646, who stated "and although in many parts thereof there be at present swarms of Negroes serving under the Spaniard, yet were they all transported from Africa, since the discovery of Columbus; and are not indigenous or proper natives of America."

Zapatista Army of National Liberation Libertarian socialist political and militant group in southern Mexico

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation, often referred to as the Zapatistas, is a libertarian socialist political and militant group that controls a substantial amount of territory in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico.

Samuel Ruiz

Samuel Ruiz García was a Mexican Catholic prelate who served as bishop of the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, from 1959 until 1999. Ruiz is best known for his role as mediator during the conflict between the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), a Mexican political party which had held power for over seventy years, and whose policies were often disadvantageous to the indigenous populations of Chiapas. Inspired by Liberation Theology, which swept through the Catholic Church in Latin America after the 1960s, Ruiz's diocese helped some hundreds of thousands of indigenous Maya people in Chiapas who were among Mexico's poorest marginalized communities.

The indigenous people of Africa are groups of people native to a specific region; people who lived there before colonists or settlers arrived, defined new borders, and began to occupy the land. This definition applies to all indigenous groups, whether inside or outside of Africa. Although the vast majority of Native Africans can be considered to be "indigenous" in the sense that they originated from that continent and nowhere else, identity as an "indigenous people" is in modern application more restrictive. Not every African ethnic group claims identification under these terms. Groups and communities who do claim this recognition are those who by a variety of historical and environmental circumstances have been placed outside of the dominant state systems. Their traditional practices and land claims often have come into conflict with the objectives and policies promulgated by governments, companies and surrounding dominant societies.

Indigenous peoples of Mexico Populations existing prior to the arrival of the Spanish

Indigenous peoples of Mexico, Native Mexicans or Mexican Native Americans, are those who are part of communities that trace their roots back to populations and communities that existed in what is now Mexico prior to the arrival of the Spanish.

Rodolfo Stavenhagen

Rodolfo Stavenhagen was a German-born Mexican sociologist and anthropologist who specialized in the study of human rights and the political relations between indigenous peoples and states. He was a professor-researcher at El Colegio de México. In 2001 he was appointed by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people through Resolution 2001/57. His mandate expired 30 April 2008. He was succeeded by Prof S. James Anaya of the University of Arizona.

The San Andrés Accords are agreements reached between the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and the Mexican government, at that time headed by President Ernesto Zedillo. The accords were signed on February 16, 1996, in San Andrés Larráinzar, Chiapas, and granted autonomy, recognition, and rights to the indigenous population of Mexico.

Neozapatismo or neozapatism is the political philosophy and practice devised and employed by Mexico's Zapatista Army of National Liberation, who have governed a number of communities in Chiapas since the beginning of the Chiapas conflict. According to its adherents, it is not an ideology: "Zapatismo is not a new political ideology or a rehash of old ideologies. .. There are no universal recipes, lines, strategies, tactics, laws, rules or slogans. There is only a desire: to build a better world, that is, a new world."

International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs

The International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) is an independent and non-profit international human rights-based membership organization, whose central charter is to endorse and promote the collective rights of the world's indigenous peoples. Established in 1968, the IWGIA is registered as a non-profit organization in Denmark, with the head office of its secretariat based in Copenhagen. IWGIA's work is primarily funded by the Nordic Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the European Union.

John Ross (activist)

John Ross was an American author, poet, freelance journalist, and activist who lived in Mexico and wrote extensively on its leftist political movements.

Chiapas conflict Ongoing conflict in southern Mexico between the Mexican government and various left-wing militias

The Chiapas conflict refers to the 1994 Zapatista uprising, the 1995 Zapatista crisis and their aftermath, and tensions between the indigenous peoples and subsistence farmers in the Mexican state of Chiapas from the 1990s to the present day.

Subcomandante Marcos Mexican activist

Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente is a Mexican insurgent, the former military leader and spokesman for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in the ongoing Chiapas conflict, and an anti-capitalist and anti-neoliberal globalization icon. Widely known by his initial nom de guerreSubcomandante Insurgente Marcos, he has subsequently employed several other pseudonyms: he called himself Delegate Zero during the Other Campaign (2006–2007), and since May 2014 has gone by the name Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano, which he adopted in honor of his fallen comrade "Teacher Galeano". Marcos bears the title and rank of Subcomandante, as opposed to Comandante, because, he is subordinate to, and under the command of, the indigenous commanders who constitute the EZLN's Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee's General Command.

The military history of North America can be viewed in a number of phases.

Radio Insurgente is the official voice of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).The radio station has been operating since August 2003 and it is independent from the Mexican government. Its broadcasting location is unknown. Radio Insurgente's content is focused on promoting the ideas and struggles of the Zapatista movement. Radio Insugente transmits programs in Spanish and in the indigenous languages tzotzil, tzeltal, chol and tojolabal. According to their website, they transmit "from various places in Chiapas directed to the Zapatista bases, the insurgentes and milicians, the commanders and local people in general". No new programs have been posted on the website since 2009, but CDs are on sale on the site and users can listen to previous content.

Women in the EZLN

Women have been influential in the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, a revolutionary leftist group in Chiapas, Mexico, by participating as armed insurgents and civil supporters. In the 1990s, one-third of the insurgents were women and half of the Zapatista support base was women. The EZLN organization style involved consensus and participation by everyone, including women and children. Therefore, one aspect of the EZLN's ideology was gender equality and rights for women. After the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, the EZLN announced the Women's Revolutionary Law which was a set of ten laws that granted rights to women regarding marriage, children, work, health, education, political and military participation, and protected women from violence. Prominent figures who joined the movement early on such as Comandante Ramona and Major Ana Maria encouraged other women to join the Zapatistas.

National Indigenous Congress

The National Indigenous Congress is an organization of communities, nations, towns, neighbourhoods and indigenous tribes of Mexico. In its own words, the CNI is "... a space of unity, reflection and organization of the indigenous peoples of Mexico, promoting the integral reconstitution of the original peoples and the construction of a society in which all cultures, all the colors, all the towns that we are Mexico". Since its foundation, among several activities, five national congresses have been held.

Women Who Fight Roundabout Anti-monument in Mexico City

The Women Who Fight Roundabout, also known as Antimonumenta Vivas Nos Queremos, is a temporary antimonumenta installed to honor the victims of femicide in Mexico. It was installed on the afternoon of 25 September 2021 by a group of feminists, who placed it on the empty plinth where a statue of Christopher Columbus had previously been. The site, a roundabout on Paseo de la Reforma Avenue in Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City, was also symbolically renamed as "Glorieta de las mujeres que luchan".

References

  1. "Zapatista delegations will visit various continents, from Europe to Africa". Avispa Midia. 8 October 2020. Archived from the original on 11 April 2021. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Aída Hernández Castillo, R. "Building alliances in pandemic times: the Zapatista journey through Europe - IWGIA - International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs". www.iwgia.org. International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. Archived from the original on 22 September 2021. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
  3. 1 2 Agren, David; Jones, Sam (4 May 2021). "Zapatistas set sail for Spain on mission of solidarity and rebellion". The Guardian . Archived from the original on 10 March 2022. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
  4. Blears, James (2 May 2021). "Indigenous Mexican Zapatistas launch symbolic invasion of Spain - Vatican News". Vatican News. Archived from the original on 9 March 2022. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
  5. Fuentes, Mitzi (26 April 2021). "Mexico's Zapatistas to press autonomy demands during Europe visit". La Prensa Latina. Archived from the original on 27 April 2021. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
  6. "Mexican Zapatista 'army' arrives home after Europe tour". Agencia EFE. 12 September 2021. Archived from the original on 13 September 2021. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
  7. Kolokotronis, Nikos (10 November 2021). "The Zapatistas journey through Europe is well underway!". DiEM25. Archived from the original on 24 November 2021. Retrieved 9 March 2022.