Solidarity with Gaza from Chiapas
Good afternoon and thank you for the space to share our word.
We are Acción Palestina Chiapas. We are a collective of people of good heart who came together in response to the genocide that the Zionist settler-colonialist state of Israel is committing in Palestine. We were shocked by the massive slaughter of innocent civilians in Gaza in the days and weeks following the events of October 7th, 2023 and decided to come together to raise our voices in solidarity with the indigenous people of Palestine and against the vengeful slaughter. Little did we imagine that we would still be doing so almost two years later, with the entire population of Gaza displaced numerous times, with the death toll standing at over 60,000 according to the estimates of the health authorities there, starvation being used as a weapon of war, and the genocide and occupation extended to what land remained in the West Bank.
From the outset, we saw it as our duty to contest the US/Israeli propaganda machine, visibilise the plight of the Palestinians, inform the local people of the history and current situation of Palestine, fundraise for organisations working on the ground there, and to never stop talking about Palestine. This is not our intention here today as we are sure that you are all aware of what is occurring in that territory which is really not so far from ours and as our Zapatista brothers and sisters have shown us at the opening of this encounter.
Although we are a diverse group of people as regards nationality, age, gender and ideological views, we were united in a common bond of anti-capitalism and anti-colonialism, setting aside our differences and pooling our efforts for the work at hand, trying as much as possible to link the struggle with local struggles. We meet weekly to plan actions, discuss strategies and tactics and are organised horizontally.
We believe that it is essential to take our struggle for justice for Palestine to the streets. From the outset, we have organised public demonstrations to draw attention to the genocide. These actions have included protests and leafletting outside some of the big supermarket chains in support of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction or BDS campaign. This campaign is organised and directed by the Palestinians themselves and aims to economically isolate Israel and raise awareness about capitalist companies that are complicit in the genocide.
As part of this campaign, we organised an action in front of Burger King together with the collective Food not Bombs distributing free Palestinian food to the public. As well as highlighting the complicity of this company in the genocide and asking people to boycott, we were able to provide a healthy food alternative to the people of Jovel and inform them of the rich culture of cuisine of the Palestinian people.
Shocked by the levels of slaughter of innocent children, we spent a month collecting second-hand children’s clothes which we hung on a clothesline around the old Municipal Palace which the Zapatistas took over on the historic January 1st, 1994. We also spread a lsit of the names of the victims of the infanticide on the ground, a list which is now sadly many times longer. This attracted the attention of many members of the public. They were invited to hang ítems of clothing to remember and show solidarity with the murdered children. We shared with them information leaflets about those children who had lost limbs, who had lost their parents, who had lost their entire families, who had lost their lives. In their obscene, vengeful war, the Zionist entity has now produced more orphans and child amputees per capita there than in any other place on Earth. All this in a geography 200 times smaller than Chiapas.
In a conscious effort to link global and local struggles, we donated the children’s clothes to the displaced people of Chiapas, who numbered over 10,000 at that time, victims of the activities of disorganised crime in the region.
On an almost weekly basis, we have held Punto Palestina where we have information about Palestine, sale of solidarity goods to raise funds for Gaza, and collect signatures to break relations with Israel. Although we have no great faith in the actions of the bad government, this has provided an opportunity for people to show their outrage over the growing numbers of the dead and show their solidarity with those who are still living. It also gives us a chance to connect with those who might not otherwise be involved. Punto Palestina has been held in various locations around San Cristóbal and like the compas we now have wheels and the Punto is now mobile in the form of a tricycle. Furthermore, we have held various rodadas with the Bicicatlán cycle collective.
Artistically, we have organised concerts, poetry readings, murals and artistic activities for children. These children’s activities were also educational and they learned about traditional farming and the crops of Palestine, their names in Arabic, Spanish, English and Tsotsil as well as getting to taste the produce of the land. These events also included painting a Palestinian flag and planting a fig tree as a permanent living monument to the people of Palestine and a symbol of their resistance.
We have also shown a number of films from Palestine. One of the most memorable was ‘’Slingshot Hip Hop’’ which we organised with local hip hop collectives El Semillero and Psicolexia, both of whom participated in the Zapatista arts festival earlier this year and have supported us with their presence and beats in many of our activities. Thank you! We thank all of the other musicians and artists who supported us and invite all artists present today to sign our online petition Artistas en Chiapas contra el Genocidio, which can be found at change.org.
We also want to thank all of the social and cultural centrers that have provided space for our activities in San Cristóbal, such as La Cosecha, Sendas, El Paliacate, Puro Mexicano, El Naufragio, Madonna Mia, La Xangarra, Malak Lebanese restaurante, La Enseñanza, the list goes on. With their support, we can clearly see the strength of working together and connecting the local and global struggles. We also thank the Zapatistas for giving us a space at their last two encounters where we were able to riase funds for Gaza and connect with like-minded people from other geographies.
At this point, we would also like to remember the solidarity shown by Padre Marcelo Pérez Pérez. As an indigenous person from Chiapas, he was all too familiar with the suffering of indigenous peoples and with those of Palestine. He displayed a Palestinian flag on the altar of the Guadalupe church and gave us the altar to read a statement about the situation in Palestine on December 12th, 2023. Just two weeks before he was brutally murdered, he offered a mass for the fallen in Gaza to mark the first anniversary of October 7th. His successor, Father Bartholomew, also gave us the altar last December 12th. It was the biggest audience we ever had. He also provided us with a space for a 24-hour fast we did with the people of Ireland on the same date.
To inform people about the past and present of Palestine, we have maintained social media platforms where we translate and post articles and news. We have had the support of local press and radio to inofrm the public about our activities. We have also organised numerous public meetings and talks. These have included a first-hand account of a Mexican doctor who was present in Gaza in the early months of the genocide and at those early stages he left the audience in tears. Since then, hundreds of health workers have been murdered and every one of the the 34 hospitals that existed in Gaza has been destroyed. Another talk that merits mention clarified the distinction between Judaism and Zionism, a distinction which is unfortunately often forgotten. As Acción Palestina Chiapas we are neither in favor of nor against any religión and we do not tolerate any racist or antisemitic comments on our social media.
All of these parts of the whole have allowed us to continue our solidarity work over these almost two years. They have made it possible to send financial support to Gaza through the organizations Medical Aid for Palestinians and the Union of Field Workers’ Committees. They have helped us to reach people and involve them in the Palestinain cause who perhaps wouldn’t have got involved otherwise.
But the work hasn’t been easy. We would have to admit that after almost two years we are tired and drained. We are tired of reading news of more deaths every day and ever-worsening atrocities. We are tired of seeing the photos of starving, dead and dismembered children. We are tired of seeing the horrific videos and hearing the harrowing screams. We are tired of the lies, hypocrisy and double standards of the bad governments of the world. At times we are emotionally drained and bordering on despair. But we refuse to close our eyes, ears and hearts. We refuse to surrender to despair and we continue to struggle just as the people of Gaza do.
Earlier this year we became aware of the presence of Israeli ex-members of the Forces of Occupation in the schools of Mexico. Having very probably participated in the genocide of indigenous children in Gaza, they appeared as ‘’volunteers’’ in Chiapas, offering to paint schools (blue and white of course!), give English and maths lessons, and used the opportunity to try to cleanse the image of Israel and take photographs with local children which they spread all over their social media, showing what good people they are in the ‘’most moral army in the world’’.
These so-called volunteers belong to an organisation called ‘’Warroirs with out Borders’’ in Hebrew but who translate their name as ‘’Heroes for Life’’. The are, in fact, ‘’War Criminals of Death’’. Their organisation is run by three retired military officials and funded by the Israeli government. Just by chance, we discovered their presence in one school where we were able to shut them down and shut down their social media thanks to the support of parents, teachers and journalists. Nevertheless, they will continue to have a presence in Mexico and other countries in Our America unless there is a coordinated and organised movement to ensure that they are no longer in Mexico. We ask you all to be vigilant in your geographies and to contact us today to begin to build this movement.
The people of Palestine have given us a new understanding of the word ‘’resistance’’. They continue to resist, their spirit shattered but unbroken. The genocide in Gaza will not last forever. Neither will the racist apartheid Zionist state. When dust of this orgy of violence clears, we must contunue to struggle, we must ensure that there is justice for Palestine and that the war criminals and all those complicit in the genocide are made accountable. We can begin by boycotting, sactioning and divesting from the Israeli state and not permitting war criminals to set foot on Mexican territory, much less be in the presence of our children. We must never stop talking about and organising for Palestine.
¡VIVA PALESTINA LIBRE!
Original article by Acción Palestina Chiapas.
Photos from Acción Palestina Chiapas.
abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=…
#chiapas #ezln #gaza #hamas #mexico #northAmerica #palestine #zapatista
