<nettime> Zapatistas, part 333

[ricardo dominguez <rdom@thing.net>]

The Zapatista Encuentro


"FOR A WORLD WHICH CONTAINS ALL WORLDS"
 
 We live in a period when human relations are
 intensely colonized.  Every where the same social
 system subjects humanity to the law of money and
 homogenizes life, generating poverty and devastation.
 Faced with the ruins inflicted by this relentless
 machine, resistances arise from other ways of life,
 yet these seem condemned to isolation.  The time has
 come to break the vicious circle which prevents
 humanity from bringing together its unease, its
 struggles and the will for change.
 
 In Mexico the armed revolt of the indigenous
 community of Chiapas, organized by the EZLN, has
 opened the way towards a different future for us
 all.  Since the 1st January 1994 the imaginative
 struggle of the Zapatistas has spurred people
 worldwide to create alternatives to neoliberalism.
 Their initiatives have been created outside the
 bounds of traditional institutional politics and
 always seek to involve the greatest possible
 numbers, especially among marginalized people.
 
 In this spirit the First Intercontinental Meeting
 for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism was organized
 in August 1996, hosted by five indigenous
 communities in Chiapas, despite the military
 occupation and siege by the Mexican Federal Army.
 The first Encuentro attracted more than three
 thousand people from 43 countries in five
 continents.  They gained the opportunity to meet
 each other, to reflect and express themselves, in an
 unprecedented act of solidarity.
 
 These participants dared to cross the threshhold
 opened by the Zapatistas and sought to cross to the
 other side of the looking-glass.  There everyone
 could be equal, precisely because they succeed in
 being different, so that various ways of life co-
 exist,  all joined in rejecting the present system
 with the desire to construct a world which includes
 many worlds -- the 'humanity' of which we speak.
 
 Everywhere there are people who are fed up with the
 dominant values, who seekto change their own lives,
 to open new spaces and construct a more dignified
 present.  Everywhere there are willing accomplices
 desiring to live an adventure.  To achieve this, it
 is worth extending the Chiapas initiative and
 creating the network of resistance which was
 proposed by the first Encuentro:
 
 'An international network of resistance in which
 people help each other, a network without an
 organized structure, without a central command,
 without a hierarchy.  A network comprising all those
 who resist.'
 
 For all those aims we announce the next Encuentro:
 
 2. PROGRAM :
 
 *25th July : MADRID
         Reception of people from around         the Planet
 (Earth)
         First Party or the starting of new
         relationships
 
 *26th July : MADRID
         reception of the rest of the people
         evening : Opening act + mad party       until late
 
 *27th July : MADRID
         Demo in Madrid centre (12 pm).  Bring
 banners, noise (whistles,       drums, other
 instruments, ...) and   lots of energy and good
 mood .
         evening : depart of the anti-   neoliberalism
 caravans to the         different venues.
 
 *28th - 31st. July : VENUES
         Reception in the different venues       and tables
 work ( debates in the   different tables and
 subtables ).
         Tableswork will be combined with        parallel
 events : concerts,      exhibitions, video showings,...
         Farewell in the different venues and
         travel to El Indiano .
 
 *1st. August : EL INDIANO
         Reception and public event.
 
 *2nd. August :  EL INDIANO
         Conclusions of the Gathering and        Farewell
 party.
         Train back to Madrid  (on the 3rd.)

 _______________________

 In Britain please contact:   fHUMAN (for Humanity
 and Against Neoliberalism) London Committee, c/o BM-
 CRL, London WC1N 3XX, email fhuman@hotmail.com
 Website address for English-language documents is:
 http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3849/gatherdx.html

 In the US please contact: ricardo dominguez.
 rdom@thing.net. Website addresss http://www.thing.net/~rdom
---
#  distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@icf.de and "info nettime" in the msg body
#  URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/  contact: nettime-owner@icf.de