Our Words Are Our Weapon

Flowers, Like Hope, Are Harvested SEPTEMBER 1995

To the men and women in solidarity with Chiapas, Mexico, meeting in Brescia, Italy To the peoples of the world.

Brothers and sisters: IN THE NAME of all the men, women, children, and the elders of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, I greet you and express our hope that your encuentro goes well.

Note: encuentro, its like an evoke...

We know we have brothers and sisters in other countries and continents. We are united by a world order that destroys nations and cultures.

Today, Money—the great international criminal—has a name that reflects the incapacity of Power to create new things. Today, we suffer a new world war, a war against all peoples, against humanity, against culture, against history. It is an international war, of Money versus Humanity, carried out by a handful of financial centers, without homeland and without shame.

Now, this international terror is called neoliberalism—an international economic order that has already caused more death and destruction than the great world wars. We have become brothers with more poor and more dead. We are united by dissatisfaction, rebellion, the desire to do something, by nonconformity.

History written by Power taught us that we had lost, that cynicism and profit were virtues, that honesty and sacrifice were stupid, that individualism was the new god, that hope was devalued money, without currency in the international markets, without buying power, without hope.

We did not take in the lesson. We were bad pupils. We did not believe what Power taught us. We skipped class when they taught conformity and idiocy. We failed modernity.

Classmates in rebellion, we discovered and found ourselves brothers. We are united by the imagination, by creativity, by tomorrow.

In the past, we not only met defeat but also found a desire for justice and the dream of being better. We left skepticism hanging from the hook of big capital and discovered that we could believe, that it was worth believing, that we should believe—in ourselves.

We learned that many solitudes did not make one great solitude but a collective that found itself united beyond nationality, language, culture, race, and gender.

We, the Zapatistas, are still here in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast, still surrounded, still persecuted, with death hanging from our every movement, from each breath, from each step.

The government is still in the palace, still circling, still persecuting, still offering death and misery, still lying.

More than a million Mexicans have participated in an unprecedented democratic exercise and made manifest their agreement with our principal demands. Many brothers and sisters in foreign lands have ratified it. The government is still deaf. Tens of thousands of men and women mobilized themselves to support the National Consulta for Peace and Democracy. The government is still blind. Hunger and illness drown entire communities. The Federal Army increases its military actions and preparations for murder. Political parties refuse to recognize the indigenous people as citizens.

The media make themselves accomplices of the lie and the silence. Desperation and anger become the national heritage. We are ignored, despised, and forgotten.

It’s clear, triumph is closer than ever.

We are already preparing to form solidarity groups with the struggles in your respective countries. Be assured that we will support you to the end (which may not be in triumph) and will not abandon you. Don’t be discouraged by difficulties; you should resist. You should press on and know that in the mountains of Southeast Mexico there is a collective heart that is with you and supports you. Don’t feel alone or isolated. We will be watchful and will not forget you.

Vale. Health to you, and don’t forget that flowers, like hope, are harvested.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast SUBCOMANDANTE INSURGENTE MARCOS