<nettime> from Chiapas

[JSalloum@aol.com]

thought you'd appreciate this.
j

===
From: Velcrow Ripper <scaredsacred@dojo.tao.ca>
 Reply-to: scaredsacred@tao.ca
 Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2001 15:16:04 -0500 (EST)

 hiya folks...sorry for the bulk mailing, but
 internet can be a bit tough down here
 sometimes...it{s velcrow here, with a few thoughts
 on the journey i am on in mexico.  for the last
 two weeks i have been a member of the "Zapatista
 Caravan for peace, justice and dignity",
 travelling from the jungles of chiapas to the
 urban chaos of mexico city, with Marcos and 24 of
 the commandantes, in a bid for peace, and freedom
 for the indigenous people of chiapas, of mexico,
 and the world. And for all of us, as marcos says:
 todos somos indios del mundo.
 
 The caravan has been an incredibly moving
 experience...it{s an example of boldness and
 determination, in the face of impossible odds...a
 sense of hope and possibility...graffitti at UNAM
 (the university in mexico city which has been the
 cente of a radical stike, now over, for the last
 year) reads "YOU DONT HAVE TO ASK ANYONE TO BE
 FREE. The Zapatistas."
 
 The Zapatistas have created autonomous
 communities, called "Aguas Calientes" throughout
 chiapas, and the caravan was in one huge mobile
 autonomous zone, where Zapatismo was upheld above
 and beyond the laws of the state.  when we arrived
 at UNAM the students had created another mobile
 "Aguas Calientes" for us in the heart of the
 campus, a tent city, with a kitchen, underground
 radio station, and events every day.  In the
 course of the caravan we drove for hundreds and
 hundreds of miles past thousands and thousands of
 ordinary mexicans at the side  of the road,
 clapping, waving, holding their hands to their
 hearts, crying, offering us food and drink,
 chanting "no estan  solos"- youre not alone.   The
 people were with us.  often my eyes would mist
 over, at one sacred moment after another, such as
 the sight of an old indigenous woman, grinning
 from  ear to ear, sunburst smile, catching my
 eyes, thanking us for coming down, a look that
 went straight to my heart,filled with hope, with
 faith, with a belief that somehow in this corrupt
 and  selfish world, the audacity, the sincerity,
 the brilliance of the Zapatistas,  and this crazy
 move, riding into the gaping jaws of the beast,
 armed only  with words, would herald the beginning
 of a real change... 
 
 On the way we stopped at Nurio where  a national
 indigenous council was held, gathering support,
 and expanding the concrete demands beyond the
 mayans of chiapas, to include all the indegnous of
 mexico...not content to have their demands met for
 their own county, the vision ofthe zapatistas
 extends throughout this cuontry...and in fact,
 beyond borders.
 
 Everyday the caravan swelled as new buses joined
 in,  from a thousand in san cristobal to well over
 five thousand by the time we reached mexico city.
 
 one day we pulled into a small town,under the last
 vestiges of a blue blue sky.  the roads were lined
 with supporters. as the zapatistas took the stage
 the sky clouded over, and the first drops of rain
 fell.
 
 by the time marcos spoke, the storm was boiling,
 ligthening flahsed, and as rained p oured down.
 the people laughed, danced, drank in the poetic
 words, which built in intensity as the storm
 itself peaked...
 
 they told us it had not rained in that town in six
 months.  in fact the name of the town is "place of
 little rain".  The streetst turned to rivers, and
 we  splashed through, back to the buses.
 
 here{s a poem I wrote that was inspired by that
 day...


   ZAPATA VIVE!

 Empty sky
 Storm forms
 Lightening flashes
 Etch images
 Of truth

 Reveal the rot
 Challenge the chains
 Woven by generation
 After generation
 After generation
 Of Men

 People Eaters
 Planet Eaters
 Conciously unconcious

 The storm is boiling
 It will not be stopped
 With a mop and a bucket

 It will not be stopped
 By all the walls of dollars
 Erected by the fearful power brokers
 And their pets
 The bent and broken governments of the world

 It will not be stopped
 By the numbed and numbered
 Sucking soothers
 Of vacant experience
 Desperate oblivion

 It will not be stopped

 It will only grow

 As you and you and you
 Choose the pain and joy
 Of concioussness

 Choose to dance in the cold driving rain
 Drenched and trembling with awe
 Swept into a hundred streams
 Coursing into a thousand rivers
 Towards the ocean of collective awakening


 The floodwaters are rising
 Swan dive in
 Laughing and shouting

 or be submerged

 The floodwaters are rising

 Its a good thing.


 Velcrow Ripper, Mexico, Mar 15/2001



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                       "Transformation is not in the future.
                             Can never be in the future.
                                   It is only now,
                                From moment to moment"
                                   -Krishnamurti
>>

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