A Mountain on the High Seas

We see and hear a socially sick world, fragmented into millions of people estranged from each other, doubled down in their efforts for individual survival but united under the oppression of a system that will do anything to satisfy its thirst for profit, even when its path is in dire contradiction to the existence of planet Earth.

We have seen and heard a nature which is gravely injured and yet, in its agony it is warning humanity that the worst is yet to come. Each “natural” disaster announces the next. Death and destruction are no longer off in the distance, limited by borders, customs, and international agreements.

We see and hear the powerful retreating and taking cover within the so-called nation-states and their walls. In this impossible leap backward, they are reviving fascist nationalisms, ridiculous chauvinisms, and a deafening torrent of meaningless blather. We are sounding the alarm about the coming wars fed by false, empty, deceptive histories that translate nationalities and races into supremacies that will be imposed with death and destruction. Disputes play out in various countries between the current overseers and those who aspire to succeed them, hiding the fact that the real boss, the owner, the ruler, is the same everywhere and has no nationality other than that of money.

In the darkness and confusion that precede these wars we hear and see that any trace of creativity, intelligence, and rationality is being attacked, persecuted and surrounded on all sides. Faced with critical thought, the powerful demand and impose their fanaticisms. They sow, cultivate, and harvest a death that is not only physical. It also includes the extinction of what is our unique human universality: intelligence. The arts and sciences are subordinated to political partisanship.

We have also seen and hear the resistance and rebellions that, even when silenced or forgotten, do not cease to be vital indicators of a humanity that refuses to follow the system’s hurried pace toward collapse. These teach us Zapatistas that the solutions may be found below, in the basements and corners of the world. They show us that if those above destroy bridges and seal borders, then we’ll just have to navigate rivers and oceans to find each other.

We have decided that it is time for our hearts to dance again, and for their sounds and rhythm to not be those of mourning and resignation. Various Zapatista delegations will go out into the world, walking or setting sail to remote lands, oceans and skies, not to seek out difference, superiority, or offense, much less pity or apology, but to find what makes us equal.

This is our pledge:

* In the face of the powerful trains, our canoes.

* In the face of the thermoelectric plants, our little lights that the Zapatista women put in the care of the women who struggle all over the world.

* In the face of walls and borders, our collective navigation.

* In the face of big capital, a common cornfield.

* In the face of the destruction of the planet, a mountain sailing through the small hours of the morning.

We are Zapatistas, carriers of the virus of resistance and rebellion. As such, we will go to the five continents.