Zapatistas to Host a Gathering in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth
To the peoples of Mexico and of the world:
To the national and international Sixth:
To the CIG support networks:
To the press:
Capitalism is a world economic system which has, since its birth, operated against human life and our mother earth. Its logic of accumulation and profit can only be reproduced through the ever-increasing exploitation of human labor and permanent dispossession of the land and territory of all of the peoples of the world, especially originary peoples.
In its current neoliberal phase, capitalism takes on ever more monstrous forms, declaring open war against humanity and the earth, our mother. Its current economic model is based on the global reach and dominance of financial capital over peoples, nations, and entire continents. Sustained by massive military and extractivist industries, this system’s insatiable logic of capitalist accumulation and consumption is fueled through real or fictitious wars, the proliferation of organized crime, as well as foreign invasions and coup d’états, putting the very conditions for human existence on the planet at risk.
Furthermore, the current system has intensified the patriarchal organization it inherited from previous systems and civilizations, becoming a violent enemy not only of humanity in general but of women and our mother earth in particular. That is, the exploitation of and deep structural violence against women are characteristic of capitalism, although they were born before it. Private property, the basis of the capitalist system, can’t be understood or explained except as part of a patriarchal system of domination over women and the earth.
The capitalist system dominates Mexico and all other countries of the world, and not even those governments which proclaim themselves to be leftist or progressive can escape the reality of a destructive system which is driving humanity toward the abyss. Thus a clearly anticapitalist and antipatriarchal defense of human life, of the territories of our peoples, and of the earth are urgent.
As part of this immense task, we invite you to a:
Forum in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth
To be held December 21-22, 2019, in the Caracol JACINTO CANEK (CIDECI in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico), centered on the following discussion topics:
A Diagnostic: Environmental Devastation and the destruction of mother earth under contemporary capitalism
Increasing Aggressions: The dispossesion of indigenous, rural, and urban territories; the dispossesion of common resources; wars of occupation; extractivism; and organized crime
Capitalism and Patriarchy: Structural violence against women and mother earth
Our Struggle for Life: The construction of anticapitalist and antipatriarchal alternatives
Sincerely,
November 2019
For the Full Reconstitution of Our Peoples
Never Again a Mexico Without Us
National Indigenous Congress/ Indigenous Governing Council
Zapatista Army for National Liberation