Opening Words at Meeting with Indigenous Organizations &
Peoples
[incomplete translation]
Originally published in
Spanish by the EZLN
*************************************
Translated by irlandesa
Opening Words by the EZLN
For the Second Preparation
Meeting for the Other Campaign
Indigenous organizations and
Indian peoples
Community of Javier Hernández
Words of Welcome from Comandante Gustavo
Good day to everyone.
Welcome, indigenous brothers and sisters throughout
Welcome to all the indigenous
organizations who are here with us. We are here to
listen to your words, in order to inform the peoples where we work and the rest
of the Clandestine Revolutionary Committee...We hope that you will be happy,
even though we have received you with but little, but we are very happy to have
you. That is all for today. Thank you. We will turn the word over to Comandanta Kelly.
Words of Welcome from Comandanta
Kelly
Good day to everyone. In the
name of my compañera comandantas
from the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee, General-Command of the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation, we are welcoming most cordially all the
women of the Indian peoples of Mexico. We are greeting you all and all of us as
women, we have the right to participate, to engage in any kind of work; the
right to govern ourselves and to organize as women; to have our cultures
respected, our languages as the women we are. Let us learn to struggle together,
to walk so that in that way we will have the strength to do our work. We
demand that our rights as indigenous be respected. That is why we are fighting
for the thirteen demands. That is why we are organizing the Sixth Declaration
of the Selva Lacandona, so
we can walk together. We hope you will be happy and pleased. We are here to
listen to your words and opinions. That is all. Thank you very much.
And we are also giving the
word to compañero:
Subcomandante Insurgente
Marcos
Good day. Welcome to
everyone...
...Well, compañeros, compañeras, who come from various parts
of the Republic and from various indigenous organizations. We would first like
to talk to you about this place where we are. This was a finca prior to the '94 uprising. It
was called
In 1994, on the first of
January, the finquero
fled. The finca's
status remained uncertain until it was known what accords the government was
going to reach. Finally, the San Andrés Accords were not fulfilled, and the
Agrarian Commission of the
......
As this is the meeting of
Indian peoples and indigenous organizations, we are going to try and talk about
what our way is like, among the indigenous, among the Indian peoples. And a
small part of that is the history recounted by our Mayan ancestors as to how
the entire world began. They said then, so our old ones recounted, that in the
beginning there was nothing, and in reality the world began to run, started to
run, when the word appeared. But the word did not appear just like that, the
word, so say our old ones, began by being thought inside
oneself, by, they say, reflecting. By using the word, the first gods, those who
made the world, began consulting among themselves, they spoke, they reached
agreement and they reflected.
And then, since they had made
accords, they joined together, joined their thoughts, and that is when the
world began to run. That is how everything began with the word being thought
within, or being reflected in the heart, which is mirror within, for us to look
at what we are. And therefore then it was the word that met with other word.
The first word did not fight,
it did want to dominate, not want to conquer another word, and that is because
the first word which came out met a word that was like its sister, because it
was equal yet different. Or as if they had the same root, but it was branch or
leaf of the tree of the world. Or as if the first word was not alone, but there
was another word, and, according to this way of thinking of our Mayan
ancestors, the world began being birthed when that one word and that other word
met each other and they did not quarrel, rather they met and reached accord
because they each respected the other and they spoke and they listened.
Then there was accord,
because the first word was not born alone, instead it had ear, and with the ear,
by listening, is how the first words began to grow because they made accord,
and the first words which found each other reached accord and first they
thought up the world and then they made it. As if they did not just set about
making the world with its rivers, its mountains, its animals, its night, its
day, its sun, its moon, its maize, its men and women, instead the first words
first thought and then they made.
But then it came to pass that
someone said he was better than the rest and he wanted to rule, he wanted to
have more and better than the rest, and then the one who wanted to rule more,
he stole from others, he took what they had away from them by force, he took
away from others what was theirs, or as if, as is said, he deprived them, which
means he took away from them what they possessed. And then he also dominated
them and dominated their work, he divested them of what they produced, or as
if, as is said, he exploited them. And that is how the one who has more and
better was born. He was not born because he just arrived, but because of the depriving
and the exploitation. And thus began, as is said, the problem. Because, as that
is how the one who wants to dominate and dominates came forth, so the one who
did not allow himself to be dominated also came forth. And so the history
of the world is the history of that struggle between those who want to dominate
in order to impose their word and their way, taking away from others their
wealth, and those who do not allow themselves to be dominated, those who rebel.
And these who rebel, who are
called rebels, they do not want to be the ones who dominate, instead they want
everyone to be even, without there being those with more and those with less. Without there being those with reason to rob and exploit and those
with no reason to be robbed and exploited. These rebels want us to be
branches and leaves of the tree of the world, each one in their own place and
in their own way. That is how our Mayan ancestors so recount. The Mayan indigenous who were the very first to people these lands.
And so this way was passed down to their sons and daughters, to the grandsons
and granddaughters, and so from one time to another, which means from one
generation to another, and the way then remained among the Mayan indigenous who
have various names and whose house extends to Yucatán
and Guatemala, Campeche, Tabasco, Quintana Roo and here in our state which is Chiapas.
Then what came to pass is
that way remained with us, as they then said, and so we the Zapatistas, or neo-Zapatistas
as they call us, or we are like new Zapatistas, we also have this way that
first we think up the world which is and what to do from within, and then we
take out the word and we seek other sister words and we look to find if there
is accord speaking and listening, and so the word is made large and thus the
world we are dreaming is also made large. But now the beginning of the world is
not up to us, but what is up to us now is that there are those who divest and
exploit and there are those who rebel and want liberation and then we chose to
be by the side of those who are struggling for liberty, the side of those who
are dominated and who are stolen from and are exploited.
And
therefore then this history. The compañeros and compañeras from indigenous
organizations already know it, because we have been walking together for a good
while. And together we saw that we must join together and reach accord and that
was how what is called the National Indigenous Congress was born. And accords
and marches and mobilizations were made, and those who rule and dominate did
not want to recognize our word of how we are. Then each one thought once again,
and new struggles were born to put our way in place, even if they did not recognize
the laws of the rich. And that is what we hope we shall talk about a bit with
the brothers and sisters who come from other sides, from other Indian peoples
and from other indigenous organizations.
[ . . . ]