- Capitalism and Alternatives -

The Zapatista Position...

Posted by: bill on June 13, 1999 at 03:41:42:

In Reply to: sandanista kossovar posted by eeze on June 08, 1999 at 10:07:10:

: Has anyone else noticed the parralels between the KLA and the pre-capitalist element sandanistas?
--

No - but here's the view from the current Zapatistas

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Zapatista Army of National Liberation

Mexico June of 1999


To the peoples in struggle against the war:
To Social Europe:
To the men and women who are saying "No!":

Brothers and Sisters:

Greetings to all from the zapatistas of Mexico. All over the world different mobilizations and activities are being carried out at this time against the war that money has sown in the heart of Europe: the war in Kosovo.

In this war, the great Power has set itself to making all of us take
part: either we support Milosevic's "ethnic cleansing" war or we
support NATO's "humanitarian" war.

This is the great alchemy of money, to offer us the option of
choosing between two wars, not between peace and war.

On the shelves of the globalized market, the Powers are offering
humanit only different versions of the same war: they come in all
colors, flavors, sizes and shapes. They are for all tastes and all
pocket books. There is only one thing that makes them the same, the
results. Always destruction, always anguish, always death. And
death, anguish and destruction are always for the other, for the
different, for that which is unnecessary, for that which is in the
way, for that which is below.

And, even within the mercantile logic of the merchants of death,
neo-liberalism wants to offer us a fraud: the war that is supposedly
going to avoid more deaths, has done nothing but multiply them; the
war that should be holding back the possibility of the conflict
expanding to other regions, has assured that the conflagration will
now spread beyond its original geographical limit; , the "intelligent"
war has done nothing but demonstrate the great destructive capacity
of stupidity; the war of "good faith" has re-defined human life: its
loss is now counted as "collateral damage."

It is a lie.

It is not true that we have to take part in this lethal market.

It is not true that there are only options between different kinds of
war.

It is not true that we must take part on the side of one or another
stupidity.

It is not true that we must renounce intelligence and humanity.

Nothing can legitimize Milosevic's ethnic war.

Nothing can legitimize NATO's "humanitarian" war.

The trap is there, but there are more and more who are refusing to
fall into it and who are saying "No!" to the war in the Balkans.

In Kosovo, it is not just the existence and resistance of Social
Europe that is at stake in the face of the Europe of Money; at stake
is not just accepting or not the de facto power of the new global
police, the new clothing with which the Pentagon is dressing their
troops.

Also at stake is the possibility of recognizing the other, the
different, in a way that he is not dead, imprisoned, humiliated,
subjugated, persecuted, forgotten.

We will not fall into the trap, we will not allow the loss of
humanity to pass into history in the category of "collateral damages,"
and to allow cynicism and conformity to be the triumphant generals of
the European war.

Despite all the power of money, despite all the arms, despite all
the arbitrary acts, despite all the attempts at hegemony and
homogenization, despite all the traps, we still have the right to say
"NO!"

And that is what we raise today. A world-wide "NO!" to the lie that
feigns truths in the skies and the grounds of Kosovo. NO to the
destruction of the different.

NO to the death of intelligence. NO to cynicism. NO to
indifference. NO to having to choose between criminals who are more
or less bloodthirsty, more or less perverse, more or less powerful.

If we do not say "NO!" to Kosovo today, tomorrow we will be saying
"YES!" to the horrors that money is now concocting all over the world.

Another, different world is possible than this violent supermarket
that neo-liberalism is selling us. Another world is possible, where
the option is between war and peace, between memory and forgetting,
between hope and resignation, between the gray and the rainbow. A
world where many worlds fit is possible. It is possible for an
imperfect "Yes!', unfinished and incomplete, to be born from a "NO!",
a "Yes!" that gives humanity back the hope of rebuilding, every day,
the complex bridge that joins thought and feeling.

This is what we zapatistas are saying: "NO!"

Viva life! Death to death!

>From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

Subcomandante insurgente Marcos.

Mexico, June of 1999.


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