Good evening.
Greetings from the Sexta Grietas del Norte network. The central theme of this event is to make known the current situation of the original peoples of Mexico to the people in the United States.
First, I want to briefly share who we are, we who make up the Sexta Grietas del Norte network.
Our name, Sexta which is Spanish for “Sixth” refers to the Sixth Declaration of the Zapatistas in 2006. Grietas is Spanish for “cracks” and refers to breaking down the walls that divide us in order to conquer and control us. From the United States we fight to tear down those walls.
Currently, our network was formed in response to the EZLN campaign “The Walls of Capital, The Cracks of the Left.” At that meeting we promised to bring Zapatista coffee to the north of the wall to help migrant and refugee relatives. From there our collective organization was born and the need to create a more concrete network in struggle and accompaniment with the compas of the EZLN and the CNI-CIG.
Since that beginning, we now have four years working with the National Indigenous Congress, and at the same time getting to know each other little by little, from California to New York. We have worked so that the agreements that govern us are horizontal and democratic, based on equality and mutual respect. We have finally reached the point where we are ready to open the door to those who would like to participate with us, be they organizations or individuals.
Here I want to share the mission of our network:
Sexta Grietas del Norte is a network of autonomous organizations and individuals, of resistances and rebellions that build collective self-organization and anti-capitalist struggle against the hierarchical structures of state power and the capitalist civilization of death. We are committed to the fight for the defense and the formation of a dignified life, which includes resisting the oppressive racial and patriarchal hierarchies and acting outside the established system of political parties. Our objectives are to mutually support our struggles and solidarity with our compañeros from the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, and the National Indigenous Congress, the Indigenous Governing Council, and the Sixth in Mexico and everywhere. We want to build a broad front of autonomous and community struggles in the United States. We join with all the peoples who struggle to create and preserve dignified and sustainable ways of life, especially the indigenous peoples who struggle to preserve their lives, history, identity, their ancestral lands and to protect Mother Earth.
What we are learning
Many people already know the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, which also participates in the National Indigenous Congress, CNI. But the people of the United States have much to learn about the multitude of communities fighting in the National Indigenous Congress, CNI. (The CNI is a grassroots organization that has nothing to do with the Mexican Congress.) The CNI communities, like the native communities in North America, defend their territory, their culture, and their future. Their struggles in both countries are our teachers and inspiration in the protection of Mother Earth. They are communities that promote traditional, sustainable, organic, and fair agriculture. An agriculture opposed to industrial crops that are polluted and polluting; opposed to the genetic engineering Monsantos of the world.
People in the United States live in an industrialized and individualistic society and we have much to learn from our original communities; of their way of living, being, and seeing and respecting the community, the world, and nature. This is something that in the North we are losing, and we must recover. There is also much to learn from their political ways, where deep dialogue replaces the rigged vote. Communities where the one who rules, rules by obeying.
The resistance of the National Indigenous Congress is a call for us to wake up. We cannot continue to ignore that the life we enjoy in the United States is based on the exploitation and plunder of the peoples of the South. For this reason, from the “global north”, from the United States, we stand in solidarity with the CNI and the Zapatista movement. Not only out of solidarity, but because our struggle is the same. To resist multinational capitalism, our struggle also has to be multinational. Their struggle is our struggle. If their resistance succeeds, we all win; if their rebellion is defeated, we all lose, including our Mother Earth.
Our parallel struggles
In the United States, as in Mexico, we suffer and fight against the same things: the pandemic, state police repression, megaprojects, and the commercialization and domination of everyday life by transnational corporations.
Example 1: The Pandemic
We are now forced to confront the coronavirus pandemic. The governments manipulate the numbers but cannot hide the tragedy. They cannot deny how neoliberalism systematically destroyed the public health systems that could protect us today. The so-called governments of Mexico and the United States knew of the pandemic and were unable to prepare us against the danger. They could not, because the owners of capital ordered that nothing be done. The so-called governments ignored the danger, hoping that with little chlorine water, with prayers and with good will, the COVID would go away. Stubborn as they are, the presidents of Mexico and the United States refused even to wear face masks.
In both Mexico and the United States, the worst part is carried by poor people. They are the “people of color,” the native peoples, women, and workers forced to work because they are supposedly “essential” or because they cannot stay home without dying of hunger.
Various native communities in Mexico and the United States were much more responsible to their people than national governments. The Zapatista communities in Chiapas and the Lakota people in South Dakota for example, closed to avoid contagion. They also strengthened their medical systems.
Example 2: State repression and violence
In both Mexico and the United States, repression has become more complex and more brutal. We are attacked by police of all kinds, local and federal, immigration and national guards, armies, and the navy. But we are also attacked by armed groups that are supposedly outside the states. Organized crime in Mexico or white supremacist militias in the United States. They get together and coordinate with police and armies to hit us harder. They are also patriarchal, macho, and murderous groups. They harass women, especially those from indigenous peoples and communities “of color.” They are rapists with impunity; they are femicidal.
Despite this, in both countries, we fight against exploitation and dispossession and we look for another way of doing politics, opposed to the rotten and sold-out parties.
Example 3: Megaprojects and the commercialization of everyday life
The governments of Mexico and the United States have profound differences, but both despise the indigenous peoples by continuing to push through, despite the pandemic, their megaprojects of death. They are great works created by and for the benefit of multinational capitalist corporations. They are mining, oil, tourism, energy projects, anti-immigrant walls or monoculture plantations.
The capitalist hydra has a new head: the so-called T-MEC (US Mexico Canada Agreement, or USMCA). This new trade agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico puts even more chains on the peoples. It forces the Mexican government to become its border police against Latin American migrants. They sell the agriculture and creativity of the people so that they increase the power, capital, and profits of capitalist corporations.
And let’s not fool ourselves. The profits from all these projects will not serve to improve the living, working, educational, or health conditions of our peoples. Quite the contrary: they will only increase the strength of the corporations, and therefore, the exploitation and dispossession that we suffer.
In conclusion
When the Zapatistas announced that they were closing their communities to defend themselves from the Coronavirus, they also made a call: “Don’t forget the struggles”, they told us. And we will not forget them!
Perhaps the most important struggle is learning to work together at all levels; between individuals and organizations, between our networks and coalitions, and between movements in various countries.
This conference is like a mirror to see ourselves in the United States. An interactive mirror, where both sides interact with each other. The Zapatistas inspire the resistance of the peoples in the United States. The movement in the United States for Black lives and against police brutality is replicated in the cities of Mexico. It is like a dance where the movements on one side invite you to move to the other side of the mirror.
Let us continue to expand the resistance and rebellion. Let us fight and dance together! Let us learn from the wisdom of our compañeras and compañeros in the National Indigenous Congress, and together let us destroy the walls of exploitation, dispossession, repression, and contempt!
Thank you very much for your attention.