Thread by @zapsgoheirinn

The #Zapatista tour of #Ireland, a long aul’ thread (but pix and vids!) to wrap up

In 1994 indigenous peasants in the mountains of SE Mexico rose up against #neoliberal capitalism, their latest struggle in 500 years of resisting colonialism…

#LaGiraZapatistaVa #EZLN

If you need a backgrounder, here's Mick McCaughan, ex-Latin American correspondent for the Irish Times and Guardian introducing why the #Zapatistas matter:

27 years later, they hold liberated territory the size of Munster –

governing themselves from below

with a powerful #womxn’s movement

practicing #AgroEcology

and with their own culture, education system, community media...

@GalwayFeminist:

rss.com/podcasts/theza…

But their #revolution is small, and the world faces a destructive economic system, violence against women, #ecological destruction, rising #fascisms, with big capital seeking to restore its “normality”...

enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2020/10/07/par…

Still they feel that there are #resistances and #rebellions around the world that hold the solutions that national governments do not.

“The cure is global”: we have to find the solution together, from below.

So the #Zapatistas decided to start a Journey for Life around the world, to continue their listening to those struggles and to share their own word.

#LaGiraZapatistaVa

roarmag.org/essays/zapatis…

They started by “conquering” #Europe and renaming it Slumil K’axkemk’op, the “rebel continent” of those who struggle against our rulers and neoliberal #capitalism, of womxn’s and LGBTQ+ struggles, of migrant and indigenous resistance to racism, of ecological struggles for life.

So we felt they had to come to this rebel island of #Ireland! We have a long history of struggles – but right now our #SocialMovements have become isolated, dependent on the powerful, uncertain, with limited goals. We wanted to hear from them and see what we could say in return.

We organised a 15-day tour of the island. No media interviews, no passive audiences –

just direct meetings between #Zapatista activists and dozens of Irish-based #SocialMovement groups and communities in struggle, each listening to the other and learning together.

Dialogues w/ feminist & LGBTQIA groups, housing & land struggles, Traveller & migrant orgs, working-class communities, #artists & radical educators, climate justice & anti-extractivism, #disability activists, anti-capitalist & labour orgs, solidarity & anti-colonial groups...

https://twitter.com/i/status/1449018769779707905

We agreed to do this even if #borders stopped the compas coming – b/c our movements don’t talk with each other enough beyond events defined by the powerful and the media.

We come to talk as tho everything would be OK if only *they* took our specific issue or group on board.

We find it harder and harder to #imagine a completely different world –

or to listen to each other about how to make that world.

But they did make it!

They speak 6 different #indigenous languages, but thanks to #colonialism, talked to us through Spanish.

We talked to them through English, though some of us are migrants or Irish-speakers.

Banner in Mincéir Thari / Traveller Cant:

See - Know - Understand - Act

After 529 years of indigenous resistance, here are the Zapatistas challenging colonialism...

at the monument to Christopher #Columbus in #Galway.

It is literally a shame on all of us that it is still there.

Meeting many generations of #Irish #activists!

Indoors conversations can be good too...

Solidarity across oceans and languages

The #Zapatistas weren't looking for bums on seats or flashy events -

they wanted direct conversations with #SocialMovements and communities in struggle, even small numbers, no matter where.

#Kinvara and #Ennis:

At Mullaghmore they heard about the struggle to protect the #Burren

ahem

In #Cork the #Zapatistas had encuentros with the Mexican community and with activists around land, housing and food sovereignty

A festival of #resistance in #Cork!

Radical art and discussions

@mygoodnessfood and music!

Nic Flanagan print for the #Zapatista compas

Meeting with @tvgcorkclg, comparing anti-#indigenous racism and the struggles against #oppression:

Arriving in working-class #Dublin...

Dublin 8 and EZLN activists shared their struggles against gender-based violence #GBV

Followed by discussions about #abolitionism...

The struggle around land and housing - and music from @StefanFae and @deadlians

20 years ago @MuirdeBarra filmed women recovering from addiction with @SAOLprojectIRL doing a project in #solidarity with #Zapatista communities attacked by paramilitaries -

last week that circle was completed, and a new one began.

Some of the SAOL women came to the meeting - others have died. Some of the Zapatistas had lived the story from the other side.

They recognised each other's trauma and struggles, oppression and resistance.

A world where many worlds fit.

More encuentros in #Dublin:

with migrant justice and anti-racist activists...

on labour struggles in and beyond capitalism...

Struggling to write our own futures, together

Compañeras en la danza!

Afro-Brazilian dance with Zapatistas and migrant activists -

celebrating life against slavery, against colonialism, against racism, against patriarchy

Some of the #Zapatistas went from #Dublin to #Wales...

... while others travelled to the #North of #Ireland

Harvesting apples on an organic farm

In the #Sperrins they shared stories of resisting #extractivism with community activists resisting mining there and from Donegal to Leitrim

Music from Colum Sands!

Teknopeasant and Stone Resistance

Visiting the sites of #community #resistance to mining

What you do when they tell you you can't park your protest caravan at the edge of the company's land

Meeting with lake protectors at #LoughNeagh, under threat from sand dredging and agricultural pollution

At GROW community garden in Belfast - working across communities, with migrants and young people

#Radical walking tour of #Belfast, sharing histories of conflict -

and international #solidarity

Belfast discussion with activists from different social movements

@Culturlann @catubelfast @GlorNaMona And music!

@Culturlann @catubelfast @GlorNaMona @grainneholland Our conversations together were all too short!

So much to learn of each other's histories, struggles, languages, ways of being...

but we had to let them travel on to new conversations with our compas in @ScotlandZapat

lab.org.uk/zapatistas-emb…

Thanks to everyone who gave their time, energy, money, cooked, organised, translated, accompanied, created beautiful art, danced, sang...

and above all made connections and took part in the discussions!

Pan de muerto (Day of the Dead bread) provided by the Mexican community

The #Zapatista tour of #Ireland was primarily organised by women and supported by marginalised, precarious and migrant communities.

These conversations didn't happen for media cameras - they were "from below & to the left", run on a shoestring & held together with gaffer tape.

Afterwards, we have a clearer sense that we’re not alone, globally or in Ireland.

There are other movements and communities in struggle, in so many places, trying to make a different world in the teeth of the powerful, the wealthy and the culturally privileged.

We’ve found greater solidarity, energy and inspiration in meeting each other:

in each other's grief and trauma, laughter and joy, courage and determination, creativity and reflection, in our differences and our similarities.

A world where many worlds fit

Can we manage to sustain those connections and solidarity with each other, from below and on the left?

The tapestry of struggles:

https://twitter.com/ceesa_ma/status/1450465310327312385

Can we keep "learning from each other’s struggles?"

Can we imagine another world as a serious possibility and find the determination to end a system that is trying to end us?

The Zapatistas say "Echan le ganas" - keep going!

What will we do differently, and what will we do next?

How do we end the capitalist nightmare?

How do we make a world free from femicide?

How can we wear our own skins, be our own bodies, speak with our own voices as equals?

How can we share one no but many yeses?

What can we do, where we are, to resist and transform?

That history is still to be written, together.

That is how we make other worlds possible, and why the Zapatistas matter for us, in Ireland:

academia.edu/56210647/Makin…

Walking, we ask questions...

/ends, but it only starts here