[OccupySheffield] [oh15] The movement of the indignados began in the Lacandon Jungle

Thu Jan 19 08:11:23 GMT 2012

Cheers Anna.
Have reposted
http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/2012/01/indignados-and-the-lacandon-jungle/

Do you have the Spanish ?

Mark

On 19 January 2012 07:55, Anna Harris <anna at shsh.co.uk> wrote:

>
> The movement of the indignados began in the Lacandon Jungle:
> Pablo Gonzalez Casanova
>
> Pablo González Casanova, now nearly 90, is a former rector of UNAM
> (National Autonomous University of Mexico). A sociologist, academic and
> researcher, he is one of Mexico’s most respected intellectuals. This
> article was his contribution to the recent seminar “planet earth:
> anti-systemic movements” held in Chiapas on the 18th anniversary of the
> Zapatista uprising.
>
> (Many thanks to Neli for her translation of this very difficult article)
>
> ** “The good living of some must not depend on the bad living of others”
>
> ** “The 99% are going to win”
>
> ** “The Zapatista movement walks through the whole world, not as an
> echo, but as the voice of the same thoughts and desires”
>
> If we consider the knowledge and actions of a worldwide movement such as
> the “indignados”, we soon notice theoretical and practical problems
> considerably different from those raised within academia, parties or
> governments. Fortunately, we have the opportunity to enrich our
> knowledge through the questions people ask and the answers they are given.
>
> Theories and practices that come “from below and to the left" genuinely
> criticize power, when it is seen as different from society, and when it
> is separate from society.
>
> The new peoples’ movements propose a democracy that corresponds to the
> decisions of the people, and that if it becomes distant from the people,
> it ceases to be a democracy.
>
> Impoverished and excluded “indignados” and “Occupy movements” formulate
> theories that contain strong empirical support. These consist of
> explanations and generalizations, based on a great quantity of
> experience. Knowledge, arts and techniques that correspond to the
> knowledge and the ways of being of the people; that knowledge which the
> anthropologist Andrés Aubry so exalts, in which, instead of the
> individualistic “I”, the Tojolabal “we” appears, that concept rescued by
> Carlos Lenkersdorf  for the philosophy of human solidarity.
>
> Theories and practices have much of the particular and also of the
> universal ...And I do not exaggerate. Think of the huge “indignado” and
> “Occupy” mobilizations which are struggling for another possible world.
> Today –two admired English professors write–, the mobilization is
> gigantic. Never before has one of this magnitude been presented, and all
> the mobilizations (they add) “began in the jungles of Chiapas with the
> principles of inclusion and dialogue”.
>
> Thus we see that "from below and to the left", and from the tropical
> forests, a movement is arising that not only fights to defend the rights
> of indigenous peoples, but also for the emancipation of all human beings.
>
> And this universal movement, amidst all its differences, faces similar
> difficulties. Moreover, it finds similar solutions through the creation
> of another world and another culture, so badly needed, which the peoples
> of the Andes call “living well", whereby “the wellbeing of some does not
> rely on the bad living of the rest". (el vivir bien de unos no dependa
> del mal vivir de otros”.
>
>
> To the contributions provided by the American Indians, many more are
> added, corresponding to the experiences of different cultures and
> histories, which all make up the world history of the struggle for
> freedom, justice and democracy; the slogan the Zapatista movement uses
> walks through the whole world, not as an echo, but as the voice of the
> same thoughts and desires.
>
>
> And there are the Greek youth fighting against the tribute of foreign
> debt; the movements of the Arab spring that the military cannot force to
> compromise; the Spanish “indignado” assemblies that articulate vital
> interests that the system can not satisfy; the young Americans occupying
> Wall Street as the centre of corporate power we all struggle against;
> the young Chileans who give up their lives so their schools and
> universities are not taken away.
>
> In all these demonstrations there is a lot in common. All, or almost
> all, agree with "inclusiveness" and "dialogue" and, in increasing
> numbers, with the idea that corporate capitalism is the source of all
> the problems that affect and threaten humanity.
>
>
>
> They also agree that the solution is democracy from everyone, for
> everyone, and with everyone, which is not delegated; some call it
> democratic socialism or the socialism of the 21st century, and others
> just call it democracy; and it is that and much more, it is a new way of
> relating to the earth and human beings ... a new way of organizing life.
>
> And it is in the midst of the richness and novelty of this global
> movement that a series of reflections coming from below and to the left
> have been understood, and a response arises seeking the triumph of the
> indignados and the poor of the earth.
>
> The richness of the reflections and calls is huge; it demands attention,
> and a deepening study; I here list briefly some of these calls which we
> must now work on:
>
> 1. Above all the call to lose fear, which the Zapatista movement has
> highlighted as a requirement for thought and action.
>
> 2. To not only think of "what to do", but "how we do it".
>
> 3. Setting out with whom -we do it- in the different circumstances.
>
> 4. To clarify our internal differences with a new style for discussion
> and agreement.
>
> 5. The complete rejection of the logic of charity. And also the logic of
> paternalism, as both of them disguise manipulation. Charity and
> paternalism are the good side of the authoritarian culture.
>
> 6. Combining the struggle for the rights of the peoples, workers and
> citizens with the struggle to build an alternative society in which good
> government collectives practice "governing by obeying". Give detailed
> examples to clarify what constitutes the practice of governing by
> obeying. (mandar obediciendo)
>
> 7. Take the necessary steps for the project of emancipation to be truly
> inclusive, and to provide a space for the respectful treatment of
> differences in race, sex, age, sexual orientation, religion, ideology
> and level of education.
>
> 8. Redefine the concepts of liberty, equality, fraternity, justice,
> democracy ... Redefine them in everyday life here and now.
>
>
>
> 9. Clarify that networks are not only networks of information. Clarify
> that networks of collectives and of collective systems have been and
> will be organized, which will: enable  horizontal organizations to
> predominate over the market and the state, encourage cooperation and
> solidarity against the individualism of the market, and allow those
> responsible for governing by obeying to follow the guidelines set by
> horizontal organizations and never even for one minute to feel above
> them. At the same time create centralized and decentralized
> organizations, like the EZLN, like the police from the people of the
> southeast, and like the municipal autonomies.
>
> 10. Deepen and promote solidarity and cooperative systems through flows
> and exchanges that bring production, consumption and services closer
> together, eg education, health, social security.
>
> 11. Constantly update knowledge about contradictions within the
> emancipation movements themselves, and not only update about external
> contradictions.
>
> 12. Encourage respect for the dignity and identity of individuals and
> peoples, without falling into individualism or provincialism, and before
> cultivating universal emancipation.
>
> 13. Combat Manichaeism [belief in religious or philosophical dualism],
> and renew the type of discussions that invoke the classics to understand
> the here and now, and include their narratives and reflections in the
> creative memory of our generalizations.
>
> 14. Recognize that, in all great movements, the people - for reasons of
> enormous importance - do not favour violent revolution but massive
> peaceful occupations of society and the earth.
>
> 15. Realise that the 99 per cent of humanity is going to win this
> struggle, and that its triumph, and the society that will be built, will
> depend on the ecological creation of a sustainable land system, able to
> meet the vital demands of a growing population when currently hundreds
> of millions suffer from hunger and cold, and able to prevent the
> continuation of an economic and political system in which the industry
> of war is the main engine of the economy.
>
>
> 16. Identify how to fight and win peacefully in a "broad spectrum" war,
> as designed by the Pentagon. If one of the "spectrums" is an armed and
> violent war, we can fight in the others,  which cover information
> technology and cyber war, the war on education, the war on culture, the
> economic war with foreign debt and derivatives, the social war which
> destroys the fabric of the community, family and class; the
> pseudo-scientific and ideological neoliberal war, cynical, re-colonizing
> and neo-fascist: the war that destroys the biosphere, and the war that
> sows terror and which accompanies the immoral war intended to co-opt,
> macro -corrupt and subject a human race which has given up and sold out.
>
> 17. Insist that the poor of the earth and those who are with them must
> challenge the broad-spectrum war in all possible peaceful spectrums: in
> the realm of education to think and do, in the realm of the economics of
> resistance that takes care of bread and water, home and hearth, services
> of health and security: the social fabric of family and community, and
> of a working class that rebuilds the essential union of regulated and
> unregulated workers; in the ideological struggle against the
> corporations, the yellow leaders and the gangs who hide their predatory
> war behind other no less infamous wars – like those against terrorism,
> drug trafficking and confusion ... And to be ever more aware that the
> current war of intimidation and corruption seeks above all the plunder
> and dispossession of the communal lands, the farmers' fields, the
> national lands, of the forests and mines, the oil reserves and
> groundwater, the soil and subsoil, the coasts and land. And not
> satisfied with oppressing the poorest of the poor and the inhabitants of
> the margins of the world, they are more and more openly impoverishing
> the middle class and depriving them of their rights, and the youth and
> children of the world of their future.
>
>
> Alongside the outraged (indignados) of the earth we must stand against
> the new policy of the carrot and the stick, of corruption and
> macroeconomic repression that corporate capitalism employs, with its
> allies and subordinates. Against their plans of intimidation and
> universal corruption, we will brandish the moral struggle and the
> courage of the people. We will do it, we know that there are more of us
> all the time, and that more and more people throughout the world are now
> struggling for what in 1994 seemed to be only a “post-modern indigenous
> rebellion”, but in reality was only the beginning of a human
> mobilization considerably better prepared to achieve the liberty,
> justice and democracy we all deserve.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
>

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