The event will include discussions/activities:

5:00 PM- 6:00PM- History of the Zapatistas

 
6:00PM-7:00PM- What are the Zapatista communities currently dealing with?

 
7:00PM-8:00PM- FOOD by Soy Taquero! MUSICA by Cituatle Ce! VENDORS!

 
8:00PM-9:00PM- ARMA Report Back. First hand report from folks that just came back from Chiapas.

 
9:00PM-10:00PM- Community Dialogue. How can we continue Zapatismo inspired work in our barrios?
COME OUT AND SUPPORT A NIGHT OF DIALOGUE, CONVIVIO AND BRIDGE BUILDING!!!

Your presence is very important as we attempt to build/strengthen bridges of already existing Zapatista inspired work.

The Delegation: Indigenous peoples in Chiapas continue to be subjected to repression as Mexico’s government serves foreign interests. At the same time the Zapatista movement continues to rebel and build autonomy.

As an ARMA delegate and international observer, you will visit Zapatista territory to share our community’s struggles while learning the history of the movement, organizing methodology and principles that have made them creative visionaries of resistance and considered the first “post-modern” revolution.

COST OF DELEGATION:
1. Own Transportation to and from Chiapas.
2. $350 – $400 fee that covers the following while in Chiapas:
a. Housing
b. Food in San Cristobal and communities
c. Transportation to and from communities to San Cristobal
d. Stipend/transportation expense for facilitators

                         To apply for the delegation please email us at armacollective@gmail.com Space is limited.

San Diego was no different. The community was extremely inquisitive and showed much appreciation for the report back. It seems like San Diego is currently in a wave of enthusiasm and desire to do work. What’s more, they are already connecting local struggles to the “bigger picture.” In other words, how is local work connected to the larger struggle against capitalism?

Please stay tuned for more on ARMA delegation, Decolonial spaces of dialogue!

(in picture:  delegates putting report backs together in Chiapas, MX)

In struggle,
ARMA!

check out the video teaser for the show here

listen to, download and share the full radio program here

About CIDECI

CIDECI was originally a state-run Centro de Desarrollo Comunitario intended to incorporate the indigenous population of Chiapas into the state; that is, to attempt to erase their traditions and introduce them to ‘modernization’. During this time the Bishop of San Cristobal, Don Samuel Ruiz, was actively involved in the regional struggles for liberation. He recognized the need for a space to create a learning community that was committed to retaining indigenous traditions. With land practically donated by the church and with the help of Dr. Raymundo, the coordinator of the space, CIDECI began to operate as a popular education learning institution. It is operated under the radical pedagogy of Paolo Freire and is broken down into a much larger system of education called El Sistema Indigena Intercultural de Aprendizajes y Estudios Abya-Yala of which CIDECI Las Casas is only a part of.  Other components include Unitierra Chiapas Iván Illich, Centro Universitario de Filosofías y Teologías Contextuales Samuel Ruiz García, Centro de Estudios Sobre Interculturalidad and the Centro de Estudios, Información y Documentación Immanuel Wallerstein, Sociedad Cooperativa de Productores Vandana Shiva, y Centro de Documentacion y Estudios Medio-Ambientales. They operate under three pillars, which the Sistema de Aprendiza fulfills; “el trabajo manual, el trabajo teórico, y el trabajo espiritual”. This is to say they incorporate a holistic approach to education and learning; “aprenden a hacer, aprenden a aprender, y aprenden a ser”.

Learning at CIDECI, la ‘Anti-Escuela’

In CIDECI the individual student is brought into a community of learning where the student lives, eats, learns, shares, works….etc. It is free of charge to the students, many of which come from small indigenous pueblos throughout Chiapas, one of the states in the Mexican Republic with the highest population of indigenous peoples. The student pays in communal labor, not manual labor, as this term is intended to apply only within the capitalist system of wage labor. The communal labor that the student participates in is part of the learning process; it is part of liberatory pedagogy to create community instead of creating workers. The students spend much of their time learning practical skills such as mechanics, pottery, sewing/textile work, welding, organic farming, animal husbandry, shoe making, computer skills, computer repair, and the list goes on. All of the products/services are for the community, the CIDECI community, and are not sold for profit to anyone outside of CIDECI as doing so would then create wage slaves out of the students. No, CIDECI refuses to participate in the capitalist system. So then, how does CIDECI manage to survive? We will engage this question below but for now I’d like to talk about the type of learning that is occurring at CIDECI.

It may be hard for us to think about education as being holistic and inclusive; mostly because we’ve been trained in a capitalist education, which is about discipline and specifically designed to prepare us for the market. The students at CIDECI don’t ‘graduate’ because they believe that learning is forever. They don’t have ‘major’s’ but rather ‘areas de conocimiento.’ At CIDECI it is not about becoming a professional as we may know one to be but, as the compa Ivan of CIDECI told us, to become a ‘profesional descalzo’; in other words, a humble, responsible human being. CIDECI teaches students the skills necessary to be self-sufficient while engaging in highly theoretical and critical dialogues that allow the students to analyze the world in which they live in through a radical, leftist perspective. This is done through theoretical seminars which are held on Thursdays and on the first Saturday of the month. In these sessions (which could last up to 5-6 hours or more) the students, and anyone in the world willing to participate, receive copies of the literature being covered the week before it is discussed and thus come to the session prepared to discuss the theoretical work in question. These sessions are translated in whatever language necessary (Tzotzil, Chol, Tzeltal, Tojolabal, English, Italian…) in order for everyone present to participate — the most discussed theorists are Ivan Illich and Emmanuel Wallerstein.

‘Autonomy’ at CIDECI

What does it mean to be autonomous? Does one have to be completely self-sufficient in order to be autonomous?  is it as clear as black and white? Or is autonomy a process? Lets analyze autonomy by looking at CIDECI and reflect on our own spaces back here in LA. As mentioned before, CIDECI received its land through the Catholic Church (autonomous, yes? Or no?). CIDECI is actually registered as an Asociacion Civil No Lucrativa; what would be like a 501c3 Non Profit Organization here in the US. They receive grants and funds from other nonprofit and solidarity organizations (autonomous, yes? Or no?). However, they have full control of where they receive their funding , none of which is received from any organization that could potentially compromise CIDECI’s goals, mission or political stance. They grow a lot of their own crops and raise a lot of their own animals for consumption. They also generate a lot of their own power and they not only provide their own water supply but also provide much of the water supply to the community outside the gates of CIDECI. Furthermore, the products they produce in CIDECI as part of the training/classes are all for their own consumption– books, shoes, clothing, furniture…etc. So, is CIDECI autonomous or not?

Autonomy is as much a process as it is an end; one which many of us that are below and to the left wish to attain. And until we reach that end we are continuously in the process of creating autonomy and self-sufficiency for ourselves just like our compas at CIDECI and our compas in the Zapatista communities. We have many projects that are creating their autonomy here in LA and are providing liberatory space, or temporary autonomous zones to the community– Eastside Café, Corazon del Pueblo, Academia Semillas del Pueblo, Freedom Schools and many more. Whether some of these may be non-profits or somehow connected to the city or other foundations that create dependence is not the issue. The issue is how we can eliminate this dependence and begin to be self-sufficient so as to not compromise our integrity and dignity. As we continue our beautiful struggle lets learn from these spaces and continue creating more and more until we can one day be completely autonomous. Let us also participate in these spaces and ensure their survival while they are present. We have lost too many conscious spaces here in LA because we don’t participate and don’t organize ourselves.

-DJ Libre

The mass media in both Mexico and the US (and I can safely state that in most of the world) is controlled by a select few; Fox TV and Televisa are the giant conglomerates I’m talking about in these respective countries. But we already know the discourse; those on top hold the resources and those on the bottom are screwed. Well, this is not some class-based, Marxist, anarcho-syndicalist analysis on the media but rather a humble expression of my reality and how I see mass media affecting not only our everyday lives but our organizing as well. It is also a reflection on what I see could be done back in the US based on dialogues with alternative media groups in Chiapas.

While in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas we had the chance to meet up with ProMedios, Indy Media Chiapas, and Radio Zapatista. ProMedios is a project that started an entire commision within the Zapatista communities (Commision de Comunicacion) and has trained and supplied multiple Zapatista communities in the art of documenting. They provide the equipment and skills necessary for the compas to document what they choose; hostilities, festivals, promotion material….etc. Indy Media Chiapas is part of the global Indy Media network of self sustainable independent journalist who believe that the best people to capture “news” are those who are creating it and experiencing it. Specifically, Indy Media Chiapas is also utilized by the Juntas de Buen Gobierno to publish comunicados and other info for international solidarity folks to keep up to date on what’s going on within Zapatista territory. Radio Zapatista is a collective that is actually based in Oakland, California that has air time on KPFA in the Bay and is dedicated to providing news, updates and analysis on the Zapatista communities. They participate in creating radio segments and news segments that are utilized in other radios throughout the world (including Radio Insurgente). We were also given some space to share our work in the states within alternative media. The homie erick shared his work with puro pedo magazine and soul rebel radio while I held it down for cal-pulli sound system, an internet radio program at cal poly pomona. This paved the way for a critical dialogue of which I will share my reflections on.

One major topic was community/audience; who is our community/audience and how do we reach out to a broader community/audience? This is a very complicated question to answer. It seems to be that mainstream media’s community is a very large one, since most of us at some point watch cnn or fox or other channels even we try not to. On the other hand, alternative media has a very specific community; those who already have their third eye open and their ears to the ground, or at least are in the process of doing so. One of the reasons that we generally agreed on was that alternative media is not as accessible to the larger ‘community’ as mainstream media is. It is very simple for folks to just turn on the television, subscribe to the la times, or tune in to power 106. For someone to tap into alternative media he/she has to make a conscious effort to seek alternatives. So how do we attempt to solve this?

I believe there needs to be local responses/creations to issues in our respective ‘communities’ in order to facilitate movement and change. By local I mean much more local than just los angeles but rather deeper. Los angeles is composed of many barrios, districts, enclaves and so on that reflect a much more local population. Thus, there needs to be media that reflect these barrios. We can’t simply be content with having kpfk and indymedia as our only sources for local news. We thus need community media rather than alternative media. Some examples of community media are brooklyn & boyle, the centro de comunicacion comunitaria and radio zombra. These are local creations that serve specific communities and issues in those immediate communities. They have a specific audience, that immediate community! It is much easier to reach out to our immediate communities with issues that are affecting them personally rather than attempt to reach out to folks and attempting to speak to them about global issues or anything else. Yes, these are important topics but I believe we can have a global, radical perspective and have that as a context from which we approach our local dynamics.

An excellent example is the issue with the 710 extension; specifically in el sereno where a group called ‘la red’ is organizing against the extension and have been doing an amazing job getting community members out to various festivals to raise awareness against the evictions and other issues with the extension. La red has recently been on uprising radio (kpfk) with sonali kolhatkar where la red organizers spoke about the extension. Uprising is an amazing show and to get on there is a huge accomplishment. However, who is sonali’s audience? Its safe to say that many residents of el sereno do not listen to uprising because it is not accessible to the larger el sereno community; because of language, content, airtime and other reasons. By la red going on air with sonali they were reaching out to an external community that may not necessarily be affected by the extension but who may very well be in solidarity with the movement against it. But is that the main audience that needs to be informed? While it is a good strategy to inform the extended community, I believe there also needs to be an alternative media collective within el sereno that focuses specifically on the extension, gentrification and the imminent cleansing of that community. There needs to be a community radio and community print media (with a non-compromising, global, leftist perspective) that reaches out directly to that specific community (el sereno). Imagine a community, perhaps pirate, radio that airs once a week to el sereno community members in the evenings (after folks are home from work) and in Spanish, dealing directly with issues within el sereno and how they relate to larger movements around los angeles and the world. By defining your community in these terms it becomes easier to reach out to them and easier for them to organize themselves. Radio has been a huge part of local/global movements throughout history that took this approach of defining their community and speaking directly to them; radio venceremos in el salvador, radio insurgente in chiapas, radio planton and radio universitario in oaxaca and many, many more.

This is just one example of many throughout the ‘other’ los angeles, the los angeles of people of color. These community focused media collectives should start springing up throughout the other los angeles and begin to organize their immediate neighborhoods while creating a ‘red’ between these same media collectives on the grassroots level. We need to create these alternatives for ourselves and not rely on the sources that are dominated by political/economic interests. I for one am ready to take on this project of a community focused and community led media alternative in the other los angeles. Lets take back the airwaves for ourselves, our communities, and our future generations. Who’s down?

-DJ Libre

By the time we arrive to the top, the sun has gone down but the rain keeps pouring. Quickly we light candles and post up in a school. Hardly settled in, Olmeca informs us that the compas are willing to meet with us immediately for a dialogue. We form a circle with the 13 in our group plus about 25 compas. The school room was dimly lit by a few candles and intensely fogged by the smoke of maiz cobs burning to keep the mosquitos away. Each and every person shares an introduction and they begin their break down on their struggle for their land which was recently taken back from government and industry in 2008. After being displaced for over 15 years ago they resort to exile in the mountains but when food runs out, they wander nomadically through different small pueblos for refuge temporarily settling in 3 different locations for up to 5 years. Families in other communities reach out to them by sharing small pieces of land for them to live off of but this becomes unsustainable for the families to grow enough food.

After years of moving around they attempt to recuperate the land they once worked and lived off of.They return and begin to rebuild but within 7 months the military tries to push them out again by using tactics like destroying their sugar cane crops, blocking their roads, contaminating their clean water with feces, and threatened to kill them. With continuous organized acts of Zapatista rebellion they have up to this point kept the community intact with the land. They continue to resist a system of exploitation and dehumanization that is invading the pure and humble terrains of Chiapas. There are now about 30 families that have built their small homes and their schools and continue to plant and harvest maiz, frijol, calabaza, and café for their own community.

They seemed equally interested in hearing our reasons for being there and a bit daunted that our big group showed up at a dark hour and under the rough climate conditions. We talk about the parallels of injustice in El Gabacho, the marginalization of our communities, our organizing and projects within universities, community centers, and as artists for autonomy. After a couple of hours we close the discussion, plan breakfast, and crashed out. We wake up to the rising sun and  receive a clearer picture of where we are standing. Purple fog at a close distance diminished as the sun grew stronger. The green lush of native plants and milpas surrounded our view. Our group breaks so that each individual can be escorted to a different family’s home for a breakfast that consisted of frijol colorado, tortillas de maiz, platanos machos and for most of us, the best coffee we have ever had sweetened with sugar cane from their milpa. Up until this point, this is probably the most intimate experience we share with compas one on one. As we walk away an elderly woman stands at the doorway of her home and waves goodbye. Her tired eyes emit intense emotion and swell with tears. She pronounces words that are hardly heard as we continued to distance away. Her story of pain and struggle could be felt in her gesture but equally, we feel her embrace to move forward and act on the present.

-Arlene Mejorado Vargas

On August 2^nd, we convened in San Cristobal and ran through the agenda for the next twelve days.  We would be spending our time in the caracoles holding conversations with the Juntas de Buen Gobiernos (the rotating governing bodies) within the caracoles, which are the community centers that represent up to hundreds of surrounding communities.  We would also be visiting with other organizations and alternative media collectives in San Cristobal that are in solidarity with and/or are adherents to the Other Campaign.   In addition to the conversations we would be having with others, our days would also be filled with critical dialogues about our roles in the movement, the larger structures that impact us and our respective work in our communities as well as beginning conversations around how we can work on our organizing capacity.  Some themes we discussed included autonomy, Z ideology and its relevance to the work we do, Capitalism, neoliberalism and relations of power. There were also many informal conversations that included questions around colonialism, privileges, settler colonialism and its impacts in the major cities such as San Cristobal, gentrification, international solidarity, gender and its dynamics in the communities in resistance as well as within organizing spaces in our communities, and questions of culture and music in our work.

The days were intense and began as early as 5am so that we could all get ready with the two restrooms we had available in our space in San Cris, load up a van by 6am and travel up to eight hours to get to our destination.  Our days were non-stop from early morning to midnight at times, filled with questions, conversations, long drives, road sickness, random pit-stops at Pemex and on the sides of the roads for emergency bathroom breaks, to muddy boots and squatting in latrines housed by a few slabs of wood and black plastic bags making walls and doors.(latrine pic)  We divided up into cooking teams to make basic meals of eggs, beans, tortillas, and coffee for most of the days we`d spend in the caracoles, sleeping on floors or plywood that served as bunkbeds next to basketball courts in the center of the caracoles.  On our drives we would come across signs designating liberated territory, signs that if one weren`t paying attention, could easily miss amidst the lush vegetation lining the highways cutting through the jungles.  Winding through wild selvas, milpas, and waterfalls, we´d drip with sweat, unable to escape the climate shock of suffocating humidity and heat.  Intermittent but constant rain made rain boots and jackets a must.

Conversations with the Juntas de Buen Gobierno and the education, production, and health commissions in La Realidad and Morelia left us inspired and humbled by their level of organization, discipline, conviction, and commitment to the   struggle.

August 3^rd through the 5^th, we settle in to our casita for the next three days at caracol Morelia, take our food to the kitchen area and while the designated cooks prep our cena, the rest of us watch and observe our surroundings.  When we’re finally called in to meet with the junta, we walk in to the room, shake hands with everyone there (about 15) then have a seat on some benches.  We start talking with the commissions first, then with the junta.  We spoke with representatives of the commission of education, health, and production.  The education rep explains to us the content and purpose of the education in the caracoles and the communities.  The main difference in their pedagogy is the use of culturally relevant, praxis-based education.  They are very aware of the power of ideology, and they begin promoting companerismo from early on within the curriculum. They understand that it is important to begin with a base of mutual respect, discipline and unity in order to guide the work they do as a community and as peoples in resistance.  They cover the same general subjects covered in traditional education like geography, math, history and politics but also include things such as culture.  The major difference in the autonomous education they promote is the purpose for their education.  They provide schooling through high school and after that they are directed into a commission according to their interests and abilities so that they can serve their communities.  They don’t believe in the need for university education because they see the intent of higher education within a traditional educational system as being structured around an individualist logic.  For them, the community comes first and the intentions in their curriculum and subjects is to promote community and collectivity.  They base their education “atraves de los pueblos”, in other words, autonomous education based on the educational needs of the communities.

The committee of production and health discussed the importance of traditional diets and traditional methods of cultivation.  As indigenous peoples, they maintain a strong connection with “nuestra madre tierra”, our mother earth, which is how they referred to the earth anytime they spoke of it.  They understand the importance of maintaining a balance and taking care of the earth, which is why they practice their traditional farming methods, now referred to as organic farming. .     Choosing what they produce, for what purpose (consumption or sale) and at what price is all decided upon by the entire community through assemblies.  When asked why they did not use fertilizers, they responded simply that the use of chemicals would poison “nuestra madre tierra” and that is what sustains them – to give chemicals to the earth would be like feeding chemicals to their own mothers.  The health commission is closely linked to that of production in that the main emphasis of their health promotion is prevention through proper nutrition.

August 6^th, we return to San Cristobal to reflect and hold our own dialogues to supplement the information we’ve gotten from the comunidades.    August 7^th we spend the entire day meeting with alternative media collectives and through conversations, share the work we do in the states.  We met with folks from Radio Zapatista, Promedios de Comunicacion Comunitaria and Indymedia Chiapas.  There will be a separate post with more specifics on our exchange.

August 8^th is the date that the Aguascalientes became caracoles, initiating a new phase in the development and organization of the Z communities.  We were planning on spending the day at another caracol, Oventik, to celebrate but we weren’t given permission to stay.  The situation in Chiapas is critical right now, with increasing attacks by the government toward the Zs and the autonomous communities.  For security reasons they only allowed us to come through for a minute and take pictures, restricting our access to only a few areas.

August 9^th is another day in the city, meeting with other organizations that have connections with the Zs.  At CIDECI, Centro Indigena de Capacitacion Integral, which lies on the periphery of San Cristobal and spans acres,we spend time exploring their space and talking with reps and ‘maestros’.    CIDECI, we got to meet with mujeres that work with the Centro de Derechos de la Mujer de Chiapas (Center for the Rights of Women of Chiapas).  They are doing amazing work in challenging traditions and customs that promote violence and repression of mujeres.  Another post will elaborate more on both these orgs.

August 10^th through the 12^th, we spent in La Realidad, a caracol in the Lacandon jungle.     It was a mad mission to get there, approximately seven hours of winding roads through the jungle.  The heat and humidity was at its peak.  While the new roads allowed us to get to La Realidad in less time, modernity is almost always a double-edged sword.  The development of the roads signal the government’s new interests in the communities for “eco-tourist” projects they have planned.  As they create new roads that will travel from San Cristobal to Palenque, they use language to disguise their attacks and repression on the indigenous communities.  We reflect on this at a pitstop while we have lunch.

Before heading back to San Cristobal, we arrive at 24 de diciembre and spend the night.  We´re met at the main road by some compas who walk us through an approximate 20 minute hike through the selva in the rain to reach the community.  We get there around 11pm at night and we´re greeted by the majority of the community that has woken up to share dialogue with us.  A group of companeros greet us; compas spanning generations and that have lived multiple displacements and repression.  As we gather in their school classroom, we go in circles and listen to their experiences in their recent recuperation of their lands from which they were displaced for almost 15 years.  Their quiet strength, humility, and genuine appreciation for our presence and interest in their struggles brings some of us to tears.

Overall, the importance of solidarity, perseverance, discipline, patience, and organization ran through everything we did, everywhere we went, and every conversation we had.   For many, being able to experience and hear firsthand the messages and stories of our comrades´ struggles was life changing.  Many had their passion renewed, convictions fortified, and gained new perspective on old tools to use in our organizing back in the states.

-Susana Morales