EZLN: The conquest in reverse: the Zapatistas begin their journey in Europe

On May 3, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) will begin a reverse journey from that of the conquerors who invaded the American continent more than 500 years ago. A group of seven Zapatistas left on Monday from the mountains of the state of Chiapas, in southern Mexico, to Isla Mujeres, in Quintana Roo. From there, they hope to sail on a boat next Monday. The delegation hopes to reach the coast of Galicia, Spain, in mid-June. This is a “journey through life,” as the organization reported on Monday in a statement signed by Sub-Commander Galeano, formerly known as Sub-Commander Marcos. In the same writing, a Mayan legend is evoked according to which Ixchel, goddess of love and fertility, said: “From the East came death and slavery. May life and freedom sail east tomorrow in the words of my bones and my blood ”.

An EZLN delegation leaves for Europe, in pictures

The squad is made up of seven people, all Mexicans and descendants of the Mayans, who “share pain and anger with other indigenous people on this side of the ocean,” as the EZLN reports via its website. The members of this delegation who started the trip on Monday will arrive “at the latest” on Friday at Isla Mujeres and will board the boat in which they will embark for the trip to Europe. The mountain. They will stay on the ship for “two or three days” before setting sail. On board, they will take three other cayucos that were sculpted and painted by members of the political and military movement born in Chiapas in 1994, under the government of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and revealed the inequalities in which most of the indigenous population .

The entourage who will travel – Lupita, 19; Carolina, 26 years old; Ximena, 25 years old; Yuli, 37 years old; Bernal, 57 years old; Darío, 47, and Marijose, 39 – have spent the last 15 days in isolation, as reported by the EZLN, to ensure that none of the seven members are infected with covid-19. During those two weeks, they lived in a replica of the boat and prepared for the “hard sea voyage”. The volunteers who requested to travel were “over 20”, according to the organization, but only seven had passports. Finally, the group was called “Squadron 421” because it is made up of four women, two men and one person who does not identify as a man or a woman.

The trip “has a lot of challenges and no complaints,” a statement read. When they announced the trip around the world last October, they said they would speak “to the Spanish people”. “Not to threaten, insult or reproach, or demand, not to ask forgiveness … Enough to play with the distant past to justify, with demagogy and hypocrisy, the current crimes”, declared the movement in a letter, which of origins has been defined as feminist and anti-capitalist. The statement faced a demand made by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2019, when he demanded that the King of Spain and the Church apologize for the abuses committed during the conquest.

“The delegation received the mandate of the Zapatista peoples to take our thoughts, that is to say our hearts, far. Not only to embrace those who rebel and resist on the European continent, but also to listen and learn from their histories, geographies, calendars and ways ”. The objective is to reach the coast of Vigo, in Galicia, in “six or eight weeks”. Once there, the Zapatistas consider two scenarios: whether they receive permission to disembark or not. If the second situation occurs, they are “ready” to unfold a large blanket that says “Wake up!” “We will wait and see if someone reads the message and then that long to see if, indeed, wakes up, and the same to see if he does something”, one reads on its Internet site. If that doesn’t happen, they will come back.

If they manage to disembark, they said: “there will be parties, dances, songs and cumbias”. The first person to land will be Marijose, the statement said, who has canoe and boat experience and “speaks fluent Spanish”. In addition to visiting Spain, the team hopes to visit around 20 countries, including Germany, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, the Kingdom United, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, among others. “On both sides of the ocean, a brief message will flood the entire electromagnetic spectrum, cyberspace and an echo will be in hearts,” concludes the press release published on Monday, which is repeatedly humorous: “The invasion has begun”.

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