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The Zapatista band ‘Dignidad y Resistencia’ performs the first of multiple appearances during the three-day women’s gathering in Zapatista territory, March 8, 2018.
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Zapatista compañeras and thousands of women from around the world gather to inaugurate the International Artistic, Political, Sporting, and Cultural Gathering of Women who Struggle in the Zapatista Caracol in the Tzotz Choj region.
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A mural in the Zapatista Caracol reads: “No more pain. Land, yes. Displacement, no! Freedom, yes. Exploitation, no!”
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Insurgenta Erika reads the opening address as the gathering kicked off on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2018.
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Compañera Maria from Caracol 4 poses with a mural. “It’s monumental to know that many compañeras want to get to know us and our history of struggle and how we started. We are very happy to have them here,” she said.
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A mural in the Zapatista Caracol reads: “Who says we women cannot and should not govern this country called Mexico?”
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Honduran feminist poet and writer Melissa Cardoza listens to a talk on decolonial feminism and the legacy of murdered indigenous leader Berta Caceres, March 9, 2018.
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Hundreds watch as Zapatista women perform a play telling the story of how communities resisted the exploitation of transnational corporations and organized themselves to create autonomous community-led alternatives.
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Women from different countries paint a mural together depicting Zapatista women planting a stalk of corn in a beating heart.
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The band Dignidad y Resistencia performs at the three-day gathering, which ran from March 8 through 10, 2018.
Even before they struck their first chord, the four balaclava-clad women of the Zapatista band Dignidad y Resistencia were met with applause. They were playing for thousands of women from more than forty countries at the first “International Artistic, Political, Sporting, and Cultural Gathering of Women who Struggle.” The gathering, held March 8-10 in the highlands of the southwestern Mexican state of Chiapas, was an opportunity to celebrate collective strength and connect the diverse struggles of women.
Over the course of three days, the gathering highlighted the role of art as resistance—and resistance as an art. Its goal was not to develop a concrete strategy or reach a collective declaration, but to bring people together to share, learn, and throw a party.
Dignidad y Resistencia performed songs telling stories of women’s leadership and indigenous uprising. “There’s no revolution without women,” they sang. The stage was surrounded by colorful murals depicting Zapatista women’s resistance, including images of women leaders blossoming from plants, with slogans like “Never again a world without indigenous women.”
For the Zapatistas, art holds an esteemed place in the movement for land, self-determination, and indigenous rights. Maria, a Zapatista from Caracol 4 who works in community radio, called it a way to “express ourselves to you and what we feel, what we do, and about our organization.”
Zapatista compañeras invited women to “play, talk, sing, dance, recite poetry, and engage in any other forms of art and culture that we want to share without embarrassment.” Zapatista men cooked and cleaned to enable some 2,000 Zapatista women to attend.
“We thought it should only be women so that we can speak, listen, see, and celebrate without the gaze of men,” said Insurgenta Erika as she kicked off the event. Her title Insurgenta, a feminine version of “insurgent” the Zapatistas created for woman insurgents in the movement’s rebel army, emphasizes her collective rather than individual identity. “If we want to be free, we have to conquer our freedom ourselves, as women.”
After Dignidad y Resistencia’s performance, Zapatista compañeras presented a series of skits, dance numbers, and poetry compositions. One theater piece depicted the process of Zapatista communities organizing against corporate exploitation, resisting militarization, and eventually thriving as autonomous communities.
The Mayan indigenous Zapatistas grabbed the world’s attention when they launched an armed uprising against the North American Free Trade agreement on January 1, 1994. They warned that NAFTA would widen the gap between rich and poor and called for equal access to “work, land, housing, food, health, education, freedom, justice, and peace.”
From its beginning, the Zapatista uprising has had a deep connection to art.
From its beginning, the uprising had a deep connection to art. Subcomandante Marcos, who helped lead the resistance movement, told Argentine poet Juan Gelman in a 1996 interview that Zapatista insurgents organized weekly events to present poems, songs, and theatre pieces. Since then, the Zapatistas have been organizing local governing bodies, health care, education, and developing new cooperative economic models. They enshrined the defense of indigenous culture in the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, the Zapatista manifesto for a world where “many worlds” belong.
Over time, the movement’s artistic side has become more public. Dignidad y Resistencia debuted in 2016 at the Zapatistas’ gathering titled CompArte—a play on words in which the Spanish word for “art” is embraced by the word “share.”
“Art makes more possible,” said Melissa Cardoza, a Honduran feminist poet and writer who attended the gathering. “Art has the capacity to both synthesize and propose, making it possible to make people think and rethink.”
“Art makes more possible.”
She added that art can also offer tools to help women find their voices and develop healthy connections with their bodies.
Nora Huerta, a member of the Mexico City-based feminist cabaret crew “Reinas Chulas,” agreed. “Art is a magnifying glass to observe social phenomena,” she said. “It has a communicative power because it speaks from the gut and reaches the emotions.”
Many artists said the gathering inspired them creatively. One woman from the United States, who participated in painting a mural of Zapatista women around a cornstalk sprouting out of a beating heart, said it was the first time she had picked up a paintbrush in years. Femina Fatal, a Tijuana-based rapper, spoke of plans to organize a women’s hip hop conference, inspired in part by the Zapatista gathering.
Mexico City native Fania Son.e.urbe, the vocalist in the band Corroncha Son, said, “opening the heart through song, music, dance, poetry—that’s how we’re letting ourselves go and embracing ourselves as we need to as women.”
After hours of Zapatista music and performances, the lights suddenly went out. Thousands of spectators in front of the main stage turned to see 2,000 candles burning in the hands of Zapatista compañeras behind them. The Zapatistas asked women present to take that flame they lit together in Chiapas and to set alight the hearts of other women.
“Take it and turn it into rage, courage, and determination. Take it and join it with other lights,” Compañera Alejandra said. “Then, perhaps, we can meet again to set fire to the system.”
Heather Gies is a freelance journalist who writes about human rights, resource conflicts, and politics in Latin America. Follow her on Twitter @HeatherGies