archivi delle proteste globaliarchives of global protestsZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION
Mexico, May of 1996
To the planet Earth (or what's left of it): May you receive our protocal greetings and the appropriate etceteras. We want to invite you to the Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism. In order to do this, we have come up with these ingenious scheme which, whether or not you accept, will at least give you a healthy break. We beg you to follow the instructions rigorously. You're welcome. We'll see you again at the end of the letter (of course you can save yourself some smiles and indignations if you skip all this and just read the Postscript at the end) or at the beginning of the Encounter.
Attentively,
For the Supreme, Contingent, Intergalactic and Hypernational of Serious and Other Kinds of Invitations Commission (SCIHSOKIC)
Sup Marcos.
Instructions for reading the invitation-summons to the Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism.
First - Mark with a little flower the invitation-Summons which most appeals to you:
Model A- Invitation - Summons with (relative) rigorous theory (For those who demand arguments and rationales).
Model B- Serious Formal Invitation - Summons (for ditto people) -
Model C- Confused Invitation - Summons (for deceiving the enemy)
Model D- Abbreviated Invitation - Summons (for people in a hurry)
Model E- Exclusive Invitation - Summons (for loiterers, policemen, spies, and infiltrators)
Second.- Read the Invitation - Summons which matches your choice.
Third.- Mark with a balloon the response to the following questions: 1. Do you accept the Invitation - Summons? Yes No I don't know Other
2. Do you plan to attend the encounter? Yes No I don't know Other
3. Do you think we deserve to win? Yes No I don't know Other Fourth.- Once the above has been done, fold the Invitation- Summons carefully and make yourself a gracious hat, give it to a boy or girl, or put it on your head and dream what you like best.
Fifth.- In reality the instructions have ended; we wanted to add a fifth one to be odd and to make a silent homage to assymetry. That is all. Have a good trip.
Attentively,
For the Supreme, Contingent, Intergalactic and Hypernational of Serious and Other Kinds of Invitations Commission (SCIHSOKIC)
Sup Marcos.
NOTE: The different models of Invitation - Summons continue. Choose the one most appropriate to your taste, interest or budget.
MODEL A
Invitation - Summons with relative rigorous theory (for those who demand arguments and rationales):
We see now that the Power refuses to name its direction. For the Power, those who suffer it have no right to know its final destiny, nor to name the mortal step which conducts them. The Power thinks that, if it is named, the lethargy which it offers as the present will become inefficient. The Power has its wise magicians, its cerebral entourage, who juggle names. If it is named, then the crimes have authors and they stop being mere historical accident. "Neoliberalism does not exist" say the stupified wisemen, "It is an invention of the stale left which finds in that name a comfortable substitute for old concepts. Neoliberalism is reduced to ethical and moral ratings" they insist "and not to a rigorous science which permits classification, measurement, arrangement, definition...and converts concepts to uselessness. They say neoliberalism must not be placed in the terrain of moral and ethical values, not just because they have everything to lose in that terrain, but precisely because neoliberalism presupposes the abolition of all morality and ethical values.
They scream, they despair and the great wisemen y rock their noble heads (or the place they occupy: "Stop the vulgarities like hope, stop affectations like the defense of life, leave the silliness of things like democracy, the anachronism of things like liberty, stop the 'nostalgia for the past' like the struggle for change, leave behind absurdities like justice. Neoliberalism is victorious because the Power is victorious". "Come on, take the clothing we offer you" they chant "accept your place in the scheme, don't be uncomfortable, or deny your classification. Everything which cannot be classified does not count, it does not exist, it is not. We offer you crumbs, yes, but it's something. Accept the portion of power which our benevolence offers you. I am the best of all religions, I synthesize the new god and the cult, the mystery and the act of faith, the holy man and the faithful, the sacred image and the temple; I do not need one or the other in order to be a cult, that is why my mirror of statistics which certifies my triumph exists."
"Rebels of the world! Let your defeats unite you! There are no victories in your yesterdays. Your nostalgia is only about what might have been. I am what I am, eternal repetition. Take the old re-cycled, imitate me, I am the one of the forever which concedes the readjustment which a touch-up requires, I am the renovated old, the nightmare of always with the advantage of being global. Accept me as your forever rival and when you procure the weapons which became useless yesterday, I will tolerate your re-editing of your defeats of yesterday. I will accept them as a humble homage to my victories of the past. Don't attempt the new, repeat the old, don't rise above my logic, I cannot digest you if you continue to be so discontent, accept your old slogan of "Repentance or Death! Defeat is ours!". For the Power the age of humanity is divided into infancy or adulthood. The only adult is the Power, all the dominated are children. The power says to us that in order to leave infancy we should aspire to be adults, to be part of the Power "Obey the rules, leave your sentimentalism and your rebellion behind, accept my existence, don't question it" murmurs the APower through the embittered scepticism of the repentant who confirm the defeat of dissidence, of the survivors of the historic sinking which reduced the desire to be better to a senseless imitation.
In the mountains of the Mexican Southeast, in the coordinates, longitude 91 degrees and latitude 16 degrees of the global supermarket, a rebellion with primarily indigenous blood has challenged the disenchantment by putting one foot in the past and another in the future. The wisemen of the Power have run over themselves in order to place shirts and epithets. "They are millenarians, anachronistic marxoids, resuscitated rubble from the Berlin wall, anxious fundamentalists who want to turn back the clock of history, ignorant of progress, understandable left- overs in the permanent campaign to eliminate the excluded."
But the shirts get torn and the labels do not satisfy. The "thinkers" ask themselves "Who are these indigenous people who do not sell or buy anything? Who cares about them? Why bother to eliminate them? Won't the lovely machine of the Power called Progress erase them? What are these aborigines doing on the information superhighway talking about dignity? What is that thing called "dignity" anyway? On what market index can it be valued? What is its commercial balance? Why such a scandal internationally? What do the Australians, Japanese, Northamericans, Argentines, English, Africans, Italians, Ecuadorians, French, Chileans, Palestineans, Spanish, Israelis, Canadians, Swiss, Peruvians, German, Dominicans, Basque, Kurds, Danish, Brazilians, Dutch, Greeks, Columbians, Irish, Catalanes, Venezuelans, Scotch, Guatemalans, Thais, and Mexicans see in this minuscule revolt? What is that thing called the "international of hope"? How many combat airplanes, military ships, war tanks, and nuclear weapons do they have? How many financial markets do they dominate? Who commands them? And most importantly, how much do they cost? The Zapatista rebellion is an uncomfortable bother in the dizzy path of modernity which converts each government into a floor salesman, each national treasure in a commodity on the shelves of the stock market, aeach dignity in a merchandising out-of-season bargain, and each history into a collectible and useless installment.
It is necessary to construct a new political culture. This new political culture can arise form a new way of looking at Power. This is not about taking Power, this is about revolutionizing its relationship with those who have it and those who suffer its consequences.
Zapatismo is not a new political ideology or re-fried old ideologies. Zapatismo is not, it does not exist. It serves, only in the way bridges serves, to cross from one side to the other. As such, in Zapatismo everyone fits, all who want to cross from one side to the other. Each one has one or the other side. There are no recipes, lines, strategies, tactics, laws, regulations or universal slogans. There is only one desire: to construct a better world, that is, a new one.
In summary: Zapatismo belongs to no one, and so, it belongs to everyone.
These are the central ideas upon which the summons to the Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism is based. It is an encounter, not a congress. We are going to find one another and see what is the result of this encounter. This is not an encounter solely for Zapatistas or sympathizers of Zapatismo. This is an encounter among those who say or want to say their respective "Enough is enough!" to their respective nightmare.
Things being so, pack up your "Enough is enough!" in your suitcase, notify whoever needs to know that from the 27th of July to the 3rd of August of 1996, you will be in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast finding other "Enough is enough's!" in order to see how we can re-start history.
Vale.
MODEL B
Serious-Formal Invitation (for ditto people).
We have said our "Enough is enough!" and we want to find your "Enough is enough!". Don't listen to those clumsy intellectuals and those bitter repentants, ignore their recommendations and their mockery. An encounter is a party, and this is what you can say at your job, house, school, or no job, that you have been invited to a party and that you will not be long, just a few days (those in which July and August hug their humidities), that it is impossible to decline (because it is, right?), and how can you not go if you will find yourself with...with...with others! And, so the hosts say, it is not an encounter to see who wins and who loses, who is strongest and who is weakest, or who knows more or knows less, or who is more this or the other thing. It is an encounter, say the hosts, an encounter for...for..well, the hosts say one must attend the encounter in order to figure out what it is we are looking for, so we must go to the encounter which clearly says that it is for humanity, and that lady deserves everything, and it is against neoliberalism and that monster deserves everything too.
So all you can do is grab your toothbrush, a comb, and some underpants, and when the person saying good-bye to you says why the toothbrush, comb and underpants you can say, in all seriousness, that the invitation clearly states that you must attend with toothbrush, comb and underpants and there must be a reason for that as well as that it is clear that the invitation is very serious, and so that there are no doubts, please review your baggage in order to confirm that you have your toothbrush, comb and underpants and surely you will ask yourself why the devil you need a toothbrush, comb and underpants in the mountains of the Mexican southeast and be careful you don't ask this loudly, better hurry because your ship-airplane-bus-bicycle-tricycle-skateboard-or- whatever is leaving and it would be terrible if you missed this encounter, not only because it is absurd to miss an encounter whose whole purpose is to find yourself and not be missing, but because then you'll never know why the devil you need a toothbrush, comb and underpants in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast and you remember that those Zapatistas had asked you to bring to the Continental Encounter some colored paper and string, so it's obvious that this is an Intercontinental and therefore more serious because now they ask for a toothbrush, comb and underpants and the police and military intelligence services (who always shine for their lack of intelligence) are already studying what kind of weapon and explosive can be made with thousands of toothbrushes, combs and underpants...
One moment please! Did you say ''thousands"? Yes, thousands, perhaps the Zapatistas want to throw the toothbrush, comb and underpants market into a panic or..
One moment! Does this mean the Zapatistas are inviting thousands of people to the Intercontinental Encounter etcetera? Of course not! In reality the Zapatistas are inviting millions, but lately their popularity is at a low point, so they expect less attendance...
It is understandable that you may feel a vague discomfort when you read about "thousands", but you are already traveling on your ship-airplane-bus-bicycle-tricycle- skateboard-or-whatever and the sky above seems to say yes, that perhaps there will be a tomorrow...
For this, you must check to see that you've brought your report for any one of the five working groups or tables, which, as the invitation clearly says, are called...
Table 1 - What politics do we have and what politics do we need?
In this worktable there can be themes like The Global Power, what can and can't it do? or maybe something called A Broad World filled with we Small Ones. Ideas against dictatorship, like political parties, the electoral struggle, other forms of struggle? Maybe something about the walls that the fall of the Berlin wall raised, or the many things we have yet to learn, or what is to be done with ideologies? Proposals for ordering them, archiving them, saving them, or renovating them. Maybe burials can be arranged. Here you can ask yourself from resistance to resistance, from you to you, how will all of us resist neoliberalism? We can reflect about Power, that problem. For a world where one rules by obeying, which will naturally lead us to discuss Self-generating struggle, a society which organizes itself and the very important theme of New Forms of Making and Saying Politics. We could also organize a panel: True democracy, is it a selective liberty? One to be purchased? Is it a liberty of conscience? Of opinion? Or of the decision-maker?
Table 2 - The economic question - horror stories.
This worktable is really a horror. Because here we can answer, if neoliberalism is our common enemy, in what particular way do we suffer its effects? Here it is possible for USEFUL EXPLANATIONS ABOUT WHAT NEOLIBERALISM IS AND HOW TO EXPOSE, AMONG EVERYTHING, ITS MULTIPLE FACES or that about THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES AND NAKED POWER. And since the worktable is about economics here we can look at the problem of the debt. Who owes whom? When will the large companies, banks and governments pay for the wealth of the planet which has been sacked from the peoples who always lose? There are not a few horrors, there is also that called free trade, of chains? The exploitation of exportation or that about THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE FREE MARKET: NEOLIBERAL BARBARISM. And what better horror can there be than A STROLL THROUGH THE WORLD OF BUSINESS; THE WAR INDUSTRY AND ITS MARKETS. DRUG TRAFFICKING: ITS POWER (legality as the mirror of virtual reality). Legality administered by delinquents. Theft of natural resources (oil, uranium, water, electricity, jungles, deserts, poles, rivers, oceanic lakes, human beings). The business of health. Corruption as the preferred instrument of the economy. In economy you also have virtual reality, there you have the macroeconomic indicators, friendly myths of technocracy. In addition you have, What is to be done with money? We can look at, Sustainability? Alternative Methods of production, commerce and other exchanges, fiscal politics and humanism. It would be essential to learn who IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE REAL POVERTY WHICH EXISTS IN A LARGE PART OF THE WORLD ( maybe FINANCIAL CAPITAL, THE REIGN OF USURY) and see HOW TO MAKE THE POLITICAL ECONOMIES CONSIDER HUMAN DIGNITY, that way we can develop STRATEGIES FOR A DEFINITIVE COMBAT AGAINST THE TARIFFS OF THOUGHT and put an end to AVARICE: THE MOTHER OF ALL SLAVERY. We have to ask if the solution is THE OPTIMIZATION OF POVERTY, isn't there enough wealth for everyone? And let's not forget THE FALL OF EASTERN EUROPE IN THE MARKET ECONOMY AND THE NEW WALLS OF POVERTY. Of course we will organize a Panel: POLITICAL ECONOMY AT THE SERVICE OF THE PEOPLE, AND NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Maybe that about SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL: NEW VISIT TO OLD CONCEPTS is true.
Table 3 - All cultures for everyone. And the medium? From Graffiti to cyberspace
And if cultures are for everyone then FREEDOM OF THE WORD is necessary and a chant "long and beautiful life to all the languages of the world", which is a way of bridging POETRY AND REVOLUTION. And since we are talking about bridges and rainbows, let us talk about colors and see that BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL. We know you then think about jazz and blues, but we want to talk about EVERYONE'S MUSIC. THE SOUNDS OF THE PLANET. THE INDUSTRY OF ROCK AND THE NUMEROUS WAYS IN WHICH TO LIBERATE IT and construct a great SPECIAL SCENE FOR THE LOVELY SOUNDS OF MUSIC, WHICH IS MUSIC AND ENLIVENS OUR HEARTS. DANCES, TRANCES, AUDITIONS. ALL THE NATURAL INSTRUMENTS WHICH MAKE GOOD SOUND ARE INVITED. But culture is not only music and words, THE VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF REALITY must also be included. FIXED AND MOBILE PLASTIC ART. AUDIO AND VIDEO, PAINTING AND MOVIES, SCULPTURE AND INTERACTIVE REPRESENTATIONS, without forgetting THE GREAT THEATER OF THE WORLD AND THE SMALL THEATERS WHICH SURROUND IT. We must take into account PHILOSOPHY AND THE PEOPLES, and of course the themes which refer to science, growth and liberty; the know-how of peace for everyone; science which is not a religions; all paths which lead to personal and general health are good; that scientific breakthroughs obey the needs of the people. It is necessary to recognize that there is Creative Resistance against cultural submission. Bricks to seal hegemonies (alternative mediums), and the re- claiming of THE RIGHT TO ENJOYMENT, FREE LABOR, LAZINESS, GRATEFUL AND GENEROUS PLAGIARISM. Another theme is that about THE INTELLECTUAL TO/BEFORE/UNDER/FITS/WITH/ AGAINST/OF/FROM/IN/ BETWEEN//TOWARDS/UP TO/THROUGH/FOR/BY/ACCORDING TO/WITHOUT/SO/OVER/ BEHIND the POWER. Of course, this is not everything. It is essential to refer to the mass media and that is very big. You will agree that something very important is the relationship between the media and information: If reality has a price, then it is. Truth as merchandise. So prepare your purse to go to the Supermarket of communication, how much truth and how many lies can you buy? But try not to just spend, LET US LEARN HOW TO WIN SPACES. THE MEDIA CANNOT DO EVERYTHING. A LIE REPEATED A THOUSAND TIMES IS STILL A LIE. Let us look for our own Technology and power; the information superhighway as a path to liberty. Machines which the people can love (knowledge is power, power for people). Let us see if it is possible to think about the MASS MEDIA AT THE SERVICE OF THE ARTS AND NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND, to have at last TELEVISION AT THE SAME LEVEL AS INTELLIGENCE, see if all the lights can come in and reveal THE SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE; MANIPULATION OR LIBERATION. A world in which everyone enjoys themselves. Maybe THE HOUSE OF THE MAN AND THE WOMAN: URBAN AND ARCHITECTURAL THEMES. Oh! and don't forget THE WALLS TALK: GRAFFITO, MURALISM. Many may think this is nothing more than SCIENCE FICTION OR FUTURIST INTUITION. Perhaps we can have a panel: THE GLOBALIZATION OF CULTURE: UNIFICATION OR HARMONIC DIFFERENCES. All the cultures for everyone and we can open up a special window for the reception and demonstration of languages; we invite all the written and spoken languages. If the speakers cannot attend, they can send letters, cassettes, or flood the electronic mail. The liberation of Babel.
Table 4 - What society is not civil?
So why can't the civilians organize it instead of the politicians and the military? For this NEVER AGAIN A WORLD WITHOUT HUMAN RIGHTS. A society which guarantees THE RIGHT TO PLEASURE AND THE RIGHT TO DIFFERENCE, LOVE WHOMEVER YOU WANT, in which All liberations: gays and lesbians, women and feminists, struggles which continue, can fit. To be a woman, pleasure or pain? A life of dignity with equal opportunity in employment, politics, and everyday life? One which unites the women of the world? Multiple Oppressions and Multiple Rebellions. Without forgetting the anachronism of POWER AND PATRIARCHY. Give a place to the new, to hope and to THINGS OF CHILDREN. We must talk about HOW FUCKING HARD IT IS TO BE YOUNG IN THE CITIES AND THE FIELDS, as well as about the Third age: the right to retirement, to respect for elders. The modern terror unites THOSE WITHOUT LAND, WITHOUT HOMES. EXPERIENCES OF INVASION, EXPROPRIATION AND RECUPERATION. HOW TO RECUPERATE LAND WHICH HAS BEEN LOST, IN ALL THE TERRITORIES. And with all that we want A WORLD WITH EDUCATION FOR EVERYONE. EDUCATION AS THE PRACTICE OF LIBERTY. SCHOOLING IN ALL LANGUAGES. And everyone must be listened to; RELGIONS, FANATICISM AND DOMINATION, TOLERANCE AND LIBERATION, to speak of THE CONSERVATION OF NATURE OR ELSE WITHOUT HER THE FUTURE IS CANCELLED. All of the painful topics should be touched such as THE EXPERIENCE OF POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC EXILE. INTERIOR EXILES. Also POLITICAL PRISONERS, JAILS, ASYLUMS AND OTHER CASTRATIONS, WOMEN, MEN AND CHILDREN IN THE SEX MARKET without forgetting AIDS AND OTHER NEOLIBERAL EPIDEMICS, THE HIV POSITIVES, THE NEWLY EXCLUDED. And from here we can proceed to HEALTH AND NUTRITION, GRATITUDES AND RANCORS OF THE HUMAN BODY. It would be good to hold a panel on new forms of civil organizations; NGO's: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Civil resistance; neighborhoods, villages, ejidos, regions. Unionism, the right to strike and other antiques. From the exploitation of mankind by mankind to the appropriation of labor and its products.
Table 5 - In this world, many worlds fit.
Beyond these borders, the horror walks: Civil War: How to avoid hell. How to get out of hell. NEW ALLIANCES BETWEEN ORGANIZATIONS, PEOPLES AND NATIONS or HOW TO BE ONE WITHOUT BOTHERING OR BEING BOTHERED, tying NEW KNOTS TO ANCESTRAL CHORDS. Maybe it is possible to LIVE IN YOUR OWN LAND OR BE A FOREIGNOR WITHOUT COMPLAINING. Tomorrow should not be about genocide, ethnocide and other pestilence, let us make a space for identities which have been reclaimed at the end of the century; new challenges for popular struggle and let us think about new identities. Return to the past? Little by little the possibilities of a PLURAL FUTURE, OR HOW TO UNDERSTAND EQUALITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY to see all sides and recognize THE USE OF COMMUNITY CUSTOMS. THEIR CAPACITY FOR INNOVATION. THEY ARE LIVING BEINGS, NOT FOSSILS WANTED BY THE PROPAGANDA OF THE GLOBAL POWER. The resistance movement of the world can make a panel called SPECIAL PANEL AT THE SERVICE OF ALL THE CIVILIZATIONS AND CULTURES WHICH DO NOT PLAN TO DIE THOUGH THEY MAY BE KILLED and a GREAT PANEL AGAINST RACISM, MARGINALIZATION AND PHOBIAS AGAINST DIFFERENT HUMAN BEINGS. THE INDIGENOUS OF AMERICA, EUROPE, OCEANIA, AFRICA AND ASIA. MAJORITY SOCIETIES, MESTIZOS, MIGRATIONS. EXPOSE YOUR DIFFERENCES FREELY.
We will open no doubt a special window for proposals and local experiences with universal interest; struggles for autonomy, for national liberation, for the recuperation of lands, for political rights, language, etcetera. I believe we must arrive at JOINT PLANS OF ACTION...NOTE: It is natural that you be slightly uncomfortable in spite of the congenial presentation of the improbable themes of the different tables. Do not worry, in each work table there will be a special space called "Everything Else" where, surely, the theme which you see is missing can be included (so you don't have to write that letter of protest you just started). And probably, by the day the Encounter begins we will have more serious themes.
And yes, it's clear you are contemplating and have read that the invitation to the Encounter include an encounter with whatever you have: a rap, a song, painting, theater, movie, video, circus, somersault, dance, or whatever. C'est a dire, you will present yourself with a document, a song, a painting, a work of art, a whatever, or only with your heart as a paper, and you know that there will be a table in each one of the AGUASCALIENTES which the Zapatistas constructed in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast and you should not worry about where those AGUASCALIENTES are because the invitation says there is one in Oventic, La Garrucha, Morelia, Roberto Barrios and La Realidad and the invitation says they are the names of five Chiapanecan indigenous communities and surely upon your arrival in Mexico someone will tell you what community you are assigned to and you will be given a map with many dots, lines and colored arrows which will surely serve no other purpose other than to confuse you. Yet the remedy to the confusion will be someone who will go with you and show you the road and in reality what worries you is the meaning of AGUASCALIENTES but those Zapatistas think of everything and the invitation includes a postscript glossary of terms and there it is clear that the AGUASCALIENTES are a mix of -ship-submarine-airplane-oxcart- bridge and one cannot imagine what form that mix will take in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast, but it helps to know that there is its definition. There are others like: Hope - Hope is the rails of the train. Everyone knows it is there and where it is going, but sometimes it gets stuck in the different stations on the road. Only the machinist continues until the end because of the knowledge that the road ends there where the rails unite at a certain point. Until then, there will be no rest.
And you are happy because you have read, in the newsy cables that the Sup listened to Juan or Mara and invited San Juan de la Cruz, Foucault, Liechtenberg and Rabelais, and according to all the serious agencies Shakespeare and Cervantes have also confirmed their attendance. Cervantes hopes to find the arm which the war took from him in Lepanto and Shakespeare, who was trapped by the history of universal literature, hopes to find the opportunity to escape his closet.
Some unknown agency has also informed that the Martians have received invitations, that no one knows what Martian really look like but surely (so say Mara and Juan) they look like them and Juan, Mara and the Sup have agreed without knowing, to invite everyone who looks like them and not like everyone else.
And you are traveling and suddenly you begin to whistle that tango called BALLAD FOR A LUNATIC and you think that it could easily be the musical theme for the Encounter and you remember how you were alarmed at first because the invitation clearly says that only those who are invited and have been accredited by July 7th of 1996 can attend and before you can ask the invitation is saying you can be accredited at...
EUROPE: The committees, collectives, platforms of solidarity as well as the representatives of the social, political, non- governmental organizations and personalities can be accredited through the National Commission for the Intercontinental Encounter of each country. These National Commissions will make public, as soon as it is available the dates for accreditation.
USA: The National Commission for Democracy in Mexico-USA.
-The International Liaison Commission in Mexico
CANADA: The National Commission for the Intercontinental Encounter.
LATIN AMERICA, ASIA, AFRICA AND OCEANIA - The International Liaison Commission in Mexico
And you are now registered and on your way to Mexico with a clear objective; decipher the mystery enclosed in the thousands of toothbrushes, combs and underpants summoned to the mountains of the Mexican southeast, and believe me, there is nothing more reassuring than having a clear objective for a trip.
So. Shall we expect you?
MODEL C
Confused Invitation - Summons (to deceive the enemy).
This...rather....in other words...I don't know...what about?...perhaps in...could be the..day...
MODEL D
Abbreviated Invitation - Summons (for those in a hurry)
Intergalactic Encounter. STOP. You are invited. STOP. July 27th to August 3rd 1996. STOP. Year 1996. STOP. Mountains of the Mexican Southeast. STOP. Don't miss it. STOP. The end. STOP.
MODEL E
- Exclusive Invitation - Summons (for loiterers, policemen, spies, and infiltrators)
You are not invited. Don't come. Don't even think about it.
***
Any unforeseen circumstance not addressed in the Invitation - Summons will be resolved, we hope, somehow.
That is all. We hope you will attend the Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism.
Vale. Good health and hurry! History is in a hurry (so they say).
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Mexico, May of 1996
P.S.WHICH ATTEMPTS TO CORRECT THE LACK OF SERIOUSNESS OF EVERYTHING ABOVE.
BASIS FOR PARTICIPATION IN THE INTERGALACTIC ENCOUNTER.
(The summons, finally).
1. - The Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and against Neoliberalism will be held between the 27th of July and the 3rd of August in the Zapatista AGUASCALIENTES located in La Realidad, Morelia, La Garrucha, Oventic and Roberto Barrios in Chiapas, Mexico.
II. - The right to attendance is obtained by invitation of the EZLN. To each country, including the host country a limited number of invitations will be assigned. The registration centers will be the following:
EUROPE: The committees, collectives, platforms of solidarity as well as the representatives of the social, political, non- governmental organizations and personalities can be accredited through the National Commission for the Intercontinental Encounter of each country. These National Commissions will make public, as soon as it is available the dates for accreditation.
USA: The National Commission for Democracy in Mexico-USA.
-The International Liaison Commission in Mexico
CANADA: The National Commission for the Intercontinental Encounter.
LATIN AMERICA, ASIA, AFRICA AND OCEANIA - The International Liaison Commission in Mexico
MEXICO: The National Liaison Commission
THE SPECIAL GUESTS WILL BE REGISTERED THROUGH THE INTERNATIONAL LIAISON COMMISSION. For information contact Paulina Fernandez C.
III.- The deadline for registration and accreditation for everyone is July 7th of 1996. The authentication of all the accredited participants will occur in Mexico from the 20th to the 26th of July.
IV.- At the time of accreditation, each participant should register in one of the five work tables, according to their interest and decision. There will be only one work table in each Aguascalientes.
V.- It is proposed that all the participating countries, including the host, carry out, within the parameters of the Intercontinental Encounter, diverse cultural and political activities such as concerts, forums, movies, theatre, video, photographs, painting. Each solidarity committee outside the country will promote such activities in their own country, before, after and during the central event of the Encounter according to their capacity. In Mexico, a special commission will be in charge of organizing parallel acts in differents cities of the Republic.
From the mountains of the Mexican southeast, for the Organizing Committee of the Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and against Neoliberalism - Mexico.
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Mexico, May of 1996
Translated by: Cecilia Rodriguez National Commission for Democracy in Mexico-USA.
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