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Support GSOC!
Members of graduate students’ trade union are on strike after NYU refuses to
renew their union contract
The Case: Short Summary.
Please send letters or emails to support the Graduate Students
Organizing Committee (GSOC) of New York University (NYU). This trade union is
composed of teaching, research and graduate assistants of NYU. After having been
active as a recognized union since 2000, NYU has refused to prolong its union
contract with GSOC for the academic year starting in September 2005. The members
of GSOC are now on strike. Please send letters and emails of protest to the
president of NYU, and publicize the case of GSOC in order to get them
international attention and support.
Background Information.
GSOC was the first recognized graduate employee union at a private
university in the U.S. It achieved this status in 2000, after a decision by the
National Labor Relations Board recognized that graduate assistants are indeed
workers and therefore have the right to unionize. Unfortunately, this decision
was overturned in 2004 in a case against a similar union that had formed at
Brown University. The decision was overturned because by that time, the majority
of the members of the NLRB were appointees of the Bush administration. However,
this ruling does not prevent the NYU administration from voluntarily agreeing to
a new union contract with GSOC. Still, the NYU administration refuses to renew
the contract with GSOC.
The NYU administration argues that they will not renew the contract because of
GSOC's attitude towards grievance procedures. Such procedures are a standard and
vital part of any union contract. GSOC has filed grievances due to unpaid
additional work, unsafe and unhealthy working conditions (mold, flooding,
asbestos), and the university's practice of appointing graduate students doing
teaching work to a different position (“adjunct” or “instructor”) at much lower
pay and benefits than they would receive under the GSOC contract. Rather than
resolve these grievances, the NYU representatives refused to meet with GSOC
representatives. This forced GSOC to request the intervention of a neutral
outside arbitrator, an expensive and time-consuming process for both parties.
Since the start of the new semester in early September 2005, GSOC members have
been organizing to force the NYU administration to negotiate a new contract with
the union. Given the university’s intransigent position, a strike will likely be
necessary to force the administration to the bargaining table.
For more information please see the website of GSOC at
http://www.2110uaw.org/gsoc/faculty_information.htm
What you can do.
- Send letters and emails of protest to John Sexton, president of NYU.
The best thing you can do from a distance is to support the GSOC with letters
and emails of protest to the president of NYU, John Sexton. There is a possible
suggestion for a letter text on the CASA website. You can either copy and paste
this text, or design your own. Please send a copy or cc to the GSOC; it is
important for them to know what kind of international response their cause has
received.
- Show the NYU administration that their attitude has an impact on their
international reputation.
Universities like to have a good international reputation. If the president of
NYU realizes that his refusal to prolong the contract of GSOC is badly received
in the international university environment, he might feel more complied to
rethink his attitude. Mention your university or organizational affiliation - if
you have one - in your letter to the president of the NYU. Bring this case to
the attention of your fellow students and of your professors. Distribute
information on NYU's policies and on GSOC on academic email lists.
If you want to send a letter by post, please send it to
John Sexton
President
NYU
70 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
U.S.A.
Please send a copy to
Graduate Students Organizing Committee
Local 2110 UAW
113 University Place, 5th Floor
New York, NY, 10013
U.S.A.
If you want to email, please send a message to John Sexton, President of
NYU: John.Sexton@nyu.edu
Please cc your message to GSOC@2110uaw.org
For email:
Please send letters or emails to support the Graduate Students Organization
Committee (GSOC) of New York University (NYU). This trade union is composed of
teaching, research and graduate assistants of NYU. After having been active as a
recognized union since 2000, NYU has refused to prolong its union contract with
GSOC for the academic year starting in September 2005. The members of GSOC are
now on strike. Please send letters and emails of protest to the president of
NYU, and publicize the case of GSOC in order to get them international attention
and support.
All necessary addresses and a suggestion for a letter is available on the CASA
website www.casa.manifestor.org
For more information see the GSOC website at
http://www.2110uaw.org/gsoc/faculty_information.htm
(24.7.2005)
Below is the latest information on New York University's perfidy:
Hugo Pezzini, Ph.D. candidate, New York University
Comparative Literature Department
TO GSOC MEMBERS AND SUPPORTERS:
This afternoon, the NYU administration announced that it was reneging on the
historic agreement we reached three years ago, which substantially improved the
working lives of graduate students at NYU. Despite the seemingly collegial tone
of NYU's email, the content is nothing more than union-busting, plain and
simple.
We are committed to securing a second contract for our members. Contrary to the
administration's claims, we have made every effort to address all of the issues
cited by the university as barriers to negotiations. In particular, we have
fully addressed the administration's stated concerns about grievances.
Two weeks ago, we met with NYU representatives Jacob Lew and Terry Nolan. At the
meeting, they told us repeatedly that the only issue blocking negotiations was a
handful of grievances which the union had filed on behalf of members reappointed
to lower paying positions not covered by the contract. We believe these
grievances raise legitimate employment concerns, and do not infringe on academic
decision-making; nonetheless, we offered to withdraw them on a permanent basis,
if they were obstacles to bargaining a second contract. Today, at approximately
4 pm, less than an hour before the university issued a public announcement,
NYU's general counsel, Terry Nolan, contacted us by telephone to tell us that
the university rejected our offer, had decided not to negotiate, and that an
announcement to that effect would be issued.
Tonight's announcement from the administration makes promises to the graduate
student community. NYU says it will continue to raise pay and provide benefits,
but without a union contract the administration can choose at any time to renege
on its promises. The administration also proposes to deal with our "rights" by
creating an appeal procedure in which the administration retains control at each
step of the process. The administration claims good faith but is turning its
back on the expressed desire of the overwhelming majority of graduate
assistants, who have repeatedly asked NYU to negotiate with our union.
The administration made similar promises to us when we originally organized,
hoping to dissuade us from voting to form a union. Now, like then, NYU is
union-busting, and trotting out the same arguments about academic decision
making. These claims didn't work then, and they won't work now. The
administration is obviously hoping that the promise of three more years of
raises will placate us and persuade us to surrender our democratic rights to
collective bargaining and to a secure, legally enforceable contract. It is
especially appalling that this supposedly liberal institution is using the
tactics of anti-union corporate employers.
NYU began its message tonight by referring to the recent decision made by the
National Labor Relations Board, which reversed the rights of graduate employees
at private universities to organize under federal labor law. The NLRB is
currently dominated by right-wing Republicans and has repeatedly issued
decisions that undermine workers' rights. The recent decision on graduate
employees, unlike the original unanimous NYU decision, was split 3-2, with the
Democratic minority strongly dissenting. [To read the full decision and dissent,
go to our website, www.2110uaw.org/gsoc.] NYU, whose top administrators come out
of the Clinton administration, is hiding behind a reactionary, Bush-appointed
labor board.
NYU's email calls for 30 days of comment, including a "town hall" meeting at an
unspecified date. We urge all of our members and
supporters to attend the town hall meeting whenever it takes place. We will
alert you of the date when it is announced. Until then, we also urge you to send
an email message to the administration, rejecting their regressive proposal and
insisting that they negotiate with us in good faith.
Our fight for a second contract will not end when NYU's thirty day period for
comment ends. We remain committed to our union and determined to win a second
contract. We took the first steps toward mobilizing for that contract this past
spring when 800 of us signed an Open Letter to John Sexton and hundreds more
rallied in front of his office at Bobst Library. In the coming weeks, we will be
contacting members and supporters for their input on future action.
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Capitalism and
Academics: Organizing In, Around, and Despite the Academy
Panel convening and transcription by Stevphen Shukaitis, Published in Radical
Society Volume 30 Number 384 (October-November 2003): 87-95
On May 4th at Bluestockings Bookstore, Cafe, and Activist Resource Center a
panel entitled "Anti-Capitalism and Academics" was held to begin addressing the
relation between radical academic and social movements.(1) On the panel were
Stanley Aronowitz (City University of New York), Jeanette Gabriel (State
University of New York), David Graeber (Yale University), Michael Hardt (Duke
University), and Luca Casarini (spokesperson for the Italian organization
Disobedienti). They were posed the following questions: How can theoretical and
political issues be addressed in a manner that makes theory relevant to
practice? How can radical theory be developed in a manner that avoids
vanguardism? How can radical academics become more connected and involved in
social movements and struggles, rather than existing apart from them? Coming
from varying perspectives, their answers raise some interesting questions and
possible directions that might be ! taken in developing stronger ties between
social movements and academia. The following is a transcript of their responses
(2) and the conversation resulting from such.
Stanley Aronowitz: The questions for me are a little mystifying - and the reason
they're mystifying is because I never thought of myself as one thing or another.
I happen to have a job at CUNY. And in the course of working there as a teacher
and writing stuff I quickly became aware that I was working in a public
university. And working in a public university the overwhelming majority of the
students were working class students. The university was perpetually in a fiscal
crisis. There were 207,000 students at City University. And the conditions that
the faculty and staff at the university faced were conditions that were shitty.
And that part of what the educational process was about was making students,
faculty, and staff aware of how the shitty things they were experiencing could
actually be dealt with. So my main activity as an activist is to try to organize
people around these issues. I've always done that. I worked in th! e steel mill
for ten years. I was a union activist. I was a community organizer. And I never
thought of myself as having a real separation.
Let me tell you how I used to read. I was a high school graduate, got kicked out
of college in the first semester. And I had a job where we worked for forty
minutes and we were twenty minutes waiting for the furnace to heat up so we
could draw steel ingots into wire. And while the ingots were in the
1700-Fahrenheit oven we had to stay around but basically had a lot of time. Of
course the forty minutes we worked got one of us sometimes killed, sometimes our
arms chopped - you know what people do in steel mills. But I did a lot of
reading while I was in the plant. A lot of my initial reading in American
history and theory and so on was in the course of working. And the first
political activity I did - the first activist thing I did was to organize a
study group of my fellow workers. We read novels. And we sometime read works of
theory. None of us had college education. Most of us had a high school education
- some of us never finished hig! h school. And the next thing you knew we were
opposing the leadership of our district on issues of union power. It started
from a study group. Where I learned that from was from the Bolsheviks.
Bolsheviks organized study groups. And I said we should organize - this is while
I was 19 years old, by the way - and we did follow that pattern. And we had
about eight or nine of us. And by the time we finished this activity I realized
that the distinction between intellectual and practical work was a distinction
that I didn't have to live very much because I started out as a worker. My
parents were workers. My grandparents were workers. That's where I come from.
And I still have that orientation. The thing I wanted to say about this is that
the best way to connect theory and practice, theory and activism, is to
understand that theory is theory of practice, otherwise it is academic. And I've
tried in the books and articles that I've written, newspapers that I've started,
the magazines that I'! ve started, endless things that I've done - is to always
understand theory as a theory of practice because that's the way I've lived my
life.
And the problem is there are people who are bourgeois intellectuals. [Laughter]
No, it's not funny. [More laughter] Bourgeois intellectuals become radicalized,
and largely by reading. And what happens as a result is the ones that become
radicalized by reading have to figure out "how do I connect myself to the
movement?" Historically they way they did that in the communist movement largely
was to go into the factories. In the United States there was a big movement to
go into the factories, to renounce one's intellectual tradition - that was a
disaster by and large - because after all, they were just bourgeois
intellectuals. That's who they were - mostly you couldn't change them. Every now
and then some of them made out all right either at factories or on ships or
other places, but not very often. But more to the point when they become
radicalized the typical pattern is, and I think that's what your question is
about - I'm doing this in a! little roundabout way - is that they think that
because they have the capacity for abstraction, that is to deal in concepts,
that their shit's made out of perfume. And that's the foundation of vanguardism.
Vanguardism is raising to the level of political theory the view that bourgeois
intellectuals have their shit made out of perfume. And their shit's not made out
of perfume. And so what they have to begin to see themselves as are people who
can support and help, can run classes, can do a lot of different things in
activist and popular movements - but they cannot lead those movements. That is
the social democratic wet dream. And it can't work because what happens as a
result of that you get the Russian revolution and all of its distortions. And
other revolutionary movements like China and Cuba are the same kinds of
distortions. And I think the problem then is to reformulate the relationship
between activists and intellectuals. And I don't use the word academics -because
that's a j! ob you have - so that intellectuals see themselves as people who
address the problem of practice from a theoretical perspective. They can be
educators, they can do some writing - they basically cannot run movements. And I
think that issue has been raised in very many ways. I don't try to run movements
at all. I try to do what I can do. After many years of my activity, given the
situation I'm in, I've become fairly modest about what people can do from any
position - but I'm particularly skeptical about what people can do from the
position of being intellectuals who do not address their intellectual activity
to the problems that are entailed in practice.
Michael Hardt: I'll just say two words, or just a little bit - and then I'd like
to ask Luca some questions. I think the relationship between the Italian
experience and the US might be helpful with this. One thing that seems to me, if
I understand that part of the question is about the perceived gulf between a
kind of theorizing that goes on in academic life and practice in the movements.
And I think one of things the we have to do is recognize it's not that
theorizing goes one in one place and practice in another - that there's a lot of
theorizing in the movements, there's a lot of intellectual activity in the
movements, and maybe sometimes not recognized as such. One of the things that
has always impressed me in my experience with the Italian movements is the
linguistic creativity of the movements themselves and the kind of theorizing
that goes on in the movements. I think it's true also in the United States and
that's wh! y I thought the comparison might be something revealing. In the
Disobedienti for instance the theorization of what civil disobedience means,
what civil disobedience can mean in different contexts, what multitude means,
how its different from the masses or how it's different from the people. And
really a questioning of what intellectuality is, what the intellectual can be
what the intellectual can be within the movements too, not as a single figure
but as a function that we all participate in. That's something that I'd like to
ask Luca if he can say a few words about in the Italian context.
Luca Casarini: For me "intellectual" is an old concept - intellectuals who are
separate from the movement. For me, there isn't a division between the
intellectual and the movement. For me the movement of movements are a collective
intellectual. There are people who work in the factory for an elaborated theory
based upon experience. It's important for me to remember the suggestion from
[Subcomandante] Marcos that it's finished - the rule of the vanguard of
intellectuality as separate from the movement. This movement of movements is
part of the communication society, part of the collection, the relation of
communication technology. In all parts of world on the 15th of February there is
one big demonstration. There is not one central committee of the demonstration
all over the world, but there is a collective intellectual that decides the
sentences, the slogan and so on. And for me there isn't a separation with the
people that! study and the people who practice. The practice needs study and the
study needs practice. And this idea in the movement of movements makes a
collective intellectual -the rule of vanguardism is finished. Separated
theoretical work is the first step in vanguardism. This work is abstraction; the
practice of the movement is an abstraction for the work of the separated
intellectual. This is important for me. We make a new conscience - we are all
intellectual, we are all activists. There isn't a separation for me.
Jeanette Gabriel: My situation is a little bit different. I teach at the Harry
Van Arsdale Center at SUNY, which IBW, the International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers, works with SUNY to provide union apprentices with an
associate's degree program. So all the union electrician in New York City have
an associate's degree - kicking and screaming, most of them. So I teach labor
history and economics to the electricians. And I'm also a union organizer for
CSEA organizing home healthcare workers in Queens and the National Writers Union
in New Jersey, and I've been involved trying to connect community and workplace
based movements for a long time. So I can't really address the question of
intellectualism separate from activism because I have never come to it in that
way. And in fact I made a very conscious decision not to teach traditional
college students. The workers that I teach in no way consider themselves to be
college s! tudents. They have a very negative view of college, and a very
negative view of intellectualism. So I try to reach out to them and teach them
to become an intellectual without realizing that they are. I think this question
of shoving ideas down people's throats versus students coming to ideas on their
own is really important one, not just for academia, but also for the movement. I
think we could have this same discussion about how ideas are brought across in
the movement.
For example, I have two main ideas I want to get across to my students in the
course of the semester. One, that there is a class struggle. The other is that
there's a system called capitalism which oppresses them. The two are intertwined
obviously. These are very basic concepts. And we learn a lot of things about the
history of the class struggle, but it's those basic concepts that I'm looking
for them to understand. And I seek to develop their own consciousness in the
classroom, which means I don't lecture at them, because that doesn't teach
anything. There has to be a discussion process where they argue with each other,
where they argue with me, where there's a dynamic that the decisions that the
class comes to are collective decisions -and not everyone's going to agree with
the, there's going to be a minority - and that's the process that needs to take
place within the movement. And I think that's the only way of creating a
democratic movement - and I try to create that in my classroom.
Specifically I do it with role-playing. I try to get the electricians to view
the world from outside their own experiences. For example if we're talking about
different strikes some of them have to represent the workers, some of them have
to represent management, some of them have to represent the courts - and they
battle it out with each other. And I always find it really interesting that the
students who are on the courts always get frustrated. They say, "the employers
are doing a much better job of arguing the position than the workers. I want to
rule with the workers but they just can't argue their position well. " And then
we have a discussion about how all our experience in society teaches us to think
like employers and not like workers, so that even when we want to defend
ourselves we don't have the tools to do it. And its' through those kind of
experiences that workers develop a class-consciousness about who and what they
are. W! e have to connect what's going on every day in New York City to the
classroom. When the transit workers were about to go out on strike in 1999 my
students wanted to know why Roger Toussaint sold them out. We had debates about
it. They wanted to know how that affected the rest of the labor movement in New
York City. They got hostile with each other and yelled at each other - and
that's all good, because they're learning to develop their own opinions. I
always tell them over and over again I don't care what the conclusion is as long
as you can back up what you said as long as you analyze what's good for workers,
what's bad for workers, what's worked in the past, what hasn't worked in the
past, what's going to take the movement forward. History has a lot of lessons.
Economics can teach us a lot of things if we can understand how the economic
system works. But those are only tools and then we have to add in our own
experiences. And when we add in our own experience then we create possible
solutions. That's what teaching has to be. It has to be a process of helping
people learn to analyze where the movement should go. That's what I'm interested
in doling with my students. I think this is a problem inside the movement, too.
Instead of sort of creating this dynamic discussion within the movement, we have
people telling us what's the way forward. None of us want to be told what's the
way forward. We want to live, we want to feel it, we want to experience it. I do
something in my economics class called Calvin monopoly. All of you who have
played Calvin ball know where we're coming from with that. In other words,
Calvin ball is from the cartoon where Calvin makes up all the rules as he goes
along. So the ! whole point is that the students make up at rules as they go on
playing monopoly - so they're all scamming each other. And the lesson is that
this is the way the capitalism system works. There are no rules; everybody is
cheating each other all the time. They have a lot of fun and throw paper money
at each other - and it's all about seeing how the system works by experiencing
it themselves. I think that's really lacking both in the classroom - most
teachers are afraid to give up that kind of control, they want to be seen as the
authority figure, they want to believe they have so much to impart to the
students that the students don't have anything to teach them. I've learned so
much from my students it's incredible. Once you get them going they'll tell you
the craziest stories about what's really going on. And then you can talk about
it and figure out what can the workers movement do to deal with these problems.
So I think there's a problem with people wanting authority and wanting power and
being afraid to let go and let that dynamic process happen. And there's a
problem in the movement that people don't feel self-confident about themselves
and their ideas enough to really analyze where the movement should go. Every
single one of us should be able to collectively sit down and talk about where
the movement should go and together we'll come up with the strongest answer. So
I think those are both the things holding us back. And I guess I don't see the
division except that both these problems exist in different ways in academia and
the movement.
David Graeber: I'm going to start less by talking about intellectuals per se
than academics because I agree that distinction between intellectuals and
activists is an artificial one and shouldn't really exist, but academia is a
reality. I'm part of it. I spend a lot of time thinking about its relation to
social activism. I think we're at a historical moment when the role of academic
intellectuals is more than anything else is to shut up and start learning
things. First thing people need to do is to get involved in actual social
movements and to start to think about the implications of new forms of practice
that are cropping up. I think that in a lot of ways the activists in practice
are way ahead of the intellectuals right now. We're caught in this weird
historical juncture. I think what happened, especially in the 70's so much
political activity was rooted in campuses that you have this time when huge
percentages of academ! ics thought of themselves as political radicals, as
leaders of some sort active political movements. Those movements have largely
faded away. There are certain exceptions like feminism. We end up in this weird
situation where most academics are writing these things that sounds like
position papers for vast social movements which don't actually exist. It's
entirely in their heads. And it's the worst kind, this weird sort of
crypto-sectarian debate where tiny differences are fetishized into huge moral
oppositions - you're a bad person if you get it wrong. It's very very
ridiculous. The immediate reaction of a lot of academics on discovering that
social movements were flowering everywhere was sort of fear, contempt, and
horror.
The first reaction you got across the board from the media and largely from
academics "oh, these people are stupid, they're so dumb - they don't know
anything (like pundits on TV who really understand things) about the IMF." As
academic intellectuals we should be collectively ashamed of that first reaction
because in point of fact what I did was simply join. Just showed up. Didn't
claim to know what was going on because I didn't. And just tried to see what was
happening. What I quickly discovered was that the forms of practice, like
consensus process - there were things that academics hadn't dreamed of with
profound implications not only for political action but just for how we should
conduct ourselves intellectually, too. It made me realize how they very style of
academic thought and debate resembles absurd tiny Marxist sects a lot more than
groups that actually get anything done. It's exactly the reverse of vanguardism
at this moment ! we should think of ourselves in so far as we are academics of
learning and trying to reform our practice - intellectual practice - through the
lessons that people are learning who are engaged in actual political struggles.
My conception of the ultimate relation, which I given a lot of thought recently
- if we're not going to be a vanguard what are we?
I'm an anthropologist, and it occurs to me the idea of ethnography is unusually
kind of fertile here. Ethnography has been used in a number f very obnoxious
ways. But it's also something that holds the potential - what it's about is
looking at forms of praxis and teasing out the underlying logical, moral
principles that might not be entirely apparent to the people doing it. I think
those tools are useful. We should be studying forms of resistance, forms of
creative alternatives that exist and trying to extrapolate from them as part of
a process of dialogue. In so far as these new movements will have a role
specifically for intellectuals it's a combination of that ethnographic impulse
and a certain type of utopian imagination imaginary - to say, "well if you
applied the same principles in your political structure to economics, might it
not look like something like this?" Sort of tossing things back and forth. So
that type of dialogue is ! the starting point of how one can conduct it. We're
just at the beginning of thinking about what that discourse would look like, how
we would really conduct it. I've thrown out some ideas previously about how we
might be going about this, some directions at least to look at. I think one of
the most important ones is to think about what we're doing somewhat in the
spirit of a gift economy. To make a gift of your ideas is to make them
translatable and something that people can take away in way that maybe you
didn't expect. And I think the first thing one has to do in doing that is to
phrase them in language that people don't have to have taken seven years of grad
school to be able to understand. That itself is a lot work - it's hard if you've
gone through seven yeas of grad school to remember how to do that. There's a lot
of unlearning to do. Because otherwise it become attached to you.
I think there's a way that everybody in academics is designed around being a
"great thinker" - a sort of "great man" theory if history embodied there, much
as there in a sectarian Marxist logic where every school of Marxism comes out of
the brain of some great thinker. We need to move away from that and come up with
ideas that aren't ours - ideas that can freely circulate and be useful for other
people. One of the first ways to do that is to make them detachable from
yourself is to not make them so obscure complex and ambiguous so that they need
to constantly refer back to you to even understand what they mean. I really
don't have as much answers as ideas of directions that we need to thinking about
going. This project is something which is really just beginning. There's
enormous room for thinking these things out. We just started to explore entirely
new territory.
Stevphen Shukaitis: I think that one of the important things to look at here,
which is al the more important to look at because of how uncomfortable such
might be to consider - is the role the university plays as a system of
stratification in society. So just because one discusses radical ideas or
politics within the university system that doesn't mean that you've actually
changed the role the university plays in society. So when we talk about radical
organizing, about the relation between intellectuals and activism, we have to
realize that such entails within it a critique of the relatively privileged
position academics have managed to stake out within society. That doesn't mean
it's same across the board, as any adjunct will tell you. But unless radical
intellectuals are willing to look critically at their own status, at the fact
the a radical reordering of the social world along more egalitarian lines would
mean reconsid! ering our own position, then we have from the very beginning set
ourselves off from the very social movements we want to embrace. You know, the
dynamics of power don't change because you've talked about and critiqued them -
they change because they're something intervenes in the system that changes
them.
One of the most important things that intellectuals can do now is to make
information available about important topics in an accessible manner. Take the
situation that led up to the most recent intensification of the war against
Iraq. Try and find a single book or source of information that explains the
functioning of the United Nations. There isn't one. Do you think most people
understand how the UN works, with all important powers held by the security
council? No, I don't think so. So much writing on the left, particularly the
radical elements, is written in a way that virtually guarantees its
marginalization. That's not how to build or support a mass movement - that's a
dynamic that almost guarantees the exact opposite. And that's why we have to see
our intellectual work as part of a collective project, as something occurring in
relation to and in the context of the social movements we embrace, rather than
as something that occurs ap! art from them.
Brooke Lehman: I wanted to comment on notions of anti-authoritarians doing a lot
of this thinking because I feel like the thing that the academy affords is the
ability to think through thoughts in a period of time that's a lot longer than
what we usually allow ourselves as activists. There's so many "one shot" deals
where you go and hear people speak, discuss it for an hour and a half, and then
you leave - you might talk about it on e-mail, but that's it. So there's not a
whole lot of opportunity to develop your theory. That's where we have a giant
split between activists and people in the academy where it doesn't need to be.
We just have to actually give ourselves the time to do this sort of work and in
on-going way in study groups and reading groups. That's largely what we want to
do here [at Bluestockings], that's the vision of this place. I was at the Social
Forum in Port Allegre. At the alternatives to capitalism event! that happened
that Michael Albert did I was really shocked. The whole purpose of the "Life
After Capitalism" event was to have four days to have panel discussions debating
different visions of life after capitalism. And his whole thing is Parecon,
participatory economics, which I don't think is the-be-all, end-all by any
means. But he and his crew were the only people that had a vision - everybody
else just had ideology. Nobody was able to have a debate because there was
nothing to debate. There was just anarchist ideology and Parecon. There were
people saying it was classist to even engage in this sort of visionary thinking,
that it really needed to be out in the streets and it was frivolous to actually
have discussions that actually made people do this sort of visionary thought. I
don't know whether we're lazy as anarchists, because I felt that was an excuse.
Why can't anybody come together - sit down for one night even per month and
start to develop theory - I don't think it ! takes a hell of a lot. I just think
that we in the anti-authoritarian left need to do this work if we're going to be
relevant and not have it be in the academy, to have it be in the movement and in
politics.
Aronowitz: The most obscene thing about American radicalism is its
anti-intellectualism. It's just obscene. And the reason that it's obscene is
because that's exactly what the system wants us to be. Exactly. The split
between activism and intellect is precisely what the doctor ordered to make the
system reproduce itself. I spend hours and days doing what you call activism.
And at some point I'm lucky because I have this academic job and there are three
reasons to have it. It's June, July, and August. During June, July, and August I
really do preserve my sanity and actually do a lot of reading and writing. And I
insist on it. When people say "but Stanley you have to come to a meeting, you
have to come to union negotiation" (I'm on the negotiating committee of a union
of 17,000 people at CUNY). And I say, "fuck yourself - you do it, I'll be back,
I can't do it. I have to take the time." Now it doesn't mean that everybody's
go! t that kind of time. But the truth of the matter is that the fight for the
intellect, the struggle for the intellect is one of the most important ones we
have. I don't think movements can go anywhere without them, without intellect -
and I agree with the idea that has been expressed of the collective intellect,
the movement as the collective intellectual. That's really true. But it doesn't
mean simply because you say that that we absolve ourselves of the responsibility
of doing some very serious reading and very serious studying, and trying very
hard to make ourselves people who can actually represent collectively that kind
of fusion - and not doing it on basis of the old time division of labor. See
that's what you were talking about. It's about everyone, to a different extent
obviously as there's no equality in this respect, embodying the fusion.
Maybe the only this I disagree with you is that I've been trying to do this my
whole life and I still haven't succeeded. It's a life! time. I live my life
trying to put it together - it's not easy.
Graeber: I think in the case of Porto Allegre it always brings home to me that
attitude, not only anti-intellectualism but a certain fundamental conceptual
mistake a lot of people have that entitlement is a bad thing, but it's a bad
thing because only some people have it. It's not that it's a bad thing to be
able to sit around and think, the problem with entitlement is that some people
have it and others don't.
Gabriel: I think this issues of how we find time to be intellectual is a more
complex one than just taking out June, July, and August, especially for us
adjuncts who make less money than we would on unemployment. The whole academic
world is being transferred into it. So that's something that if people are
really serious about preserving intellectual space then full timers need to
fight for adjuncts instead of pitting themselves against them in order to
preserve their privilege, which I know you have not done [Stanley]. Making for
intellectualism is a community responsibility - I'm the only woman up on this
panel and I don't think that's a mistake. I don't mean that you did anything
wrong [Stevphen]. Women who are intellectuals have families, are trying to be
activists, and don't have a lot of time, especially not on a Sunday night to
come and have this kind of a chat. We need to make space as a community for
people to have ! time to do intellectual work. And that means it's not always
going to be the guys thinking they know best doing the intellectualizing for us.
One of the issues that has been talked about around Bluestockings has been
childcare, and I think that's very important when it comes to making space for
people to intellectual work. You have to take a community responsibility for the
community - and find time for all of us to engage in that work together.
Notes
(1) Panel convening and transcription by Stevphen Shukaitis. Please send all
comments and queries to
stevphen@mutualaid.org
(2) The transcript has been slightly edited afterwards for the sake of clarity
and for the opportunity of giving the speakers chances to make minor corrections
in their statements
-----------------------------------------------------
ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL
LIBERATION.
MEXICO. Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee - General Command of the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Mexico, in the sixth month, or June, of the year 2005.
Translated by irlandesa
This is our simple word which seeks to touch the hearts of humble and simple
people like ourselves, but people who are also, like ourselves, dignified and
rebel. This is our simple word for recounting what our path has been and where
we are now, in order to explain how we see the world and our country, in order
to say what we are thinking of doing and how we are thinking of doing it, and in
order to invite other persons to walk with us in something very great which is
called Mexico and something greater which is called the world. This is our
simple word in order to inform all honest and noble hearts what it is we want in
Mexico and the world. This is our simple word, because it is our idea to call on
those who are like us and to join together with them, everywhere they are living
and struggling.
I - What We Are
We are the zapatistas of the EZLN, although we are also called
"neo-zapatistas." Now, we, the zapatistas of the EZLN, rose up in arms in
January of 1994 because we saw how widespread had become the evil wrought by the
powerful who only humiliated us, stole from us, imprisoned us and killed us, and
no one was saying anything or doing anything. That is why we said "Ya Basta!,"
that no longer were we going to allow them to make us inferior or to treat us
worse than animals. And then we also said we wanted democracy, liberty and
justice for all Mexicans although we were concentrated on the Indian peoples.
Because it so happened that we, the EZLN, were almost all only indigenous from
here in Chiapas, but we did not want to struggle just for own good, or just for
the good of the indigenous of Chiapas, or just for the good of the Indian
peoples of Mexico. We wanted to fight along with everyone who was humble and
simple like ourselves and who was in great need and who suffered from
exploitation and thievery by the rich and their bad governments here, in our
Mexico, and in other countries in the world.
And then our small history was that we grew tired of exploitation by the
powerful, and then we organized in order to defend ourselves and to fight for
justice. In the beginning there were not many of us, just a few, going this way
and that, talking with and listening to other people like us. We did that for
many years, and we did it in secret, without making a stir. In other words, we
joined forces in silence. We remained like that for about 10 years, and then we
had grown, and then we were many thousands. We trained ourselves quite well in
politics and weapons, and, suddenly, when the rich were throwing their New
Year's Eve parties, we fell upon their cities and just took them over. And we
left a message to everyone that here we are, that they have to take notice of
us. And then the rich took off and sent their great armies to do away with us,
just like they always do when the exploited rebel - they order them all to be
done away with. But we were not done away with at all, because we had prepared
ourselves quite well prior to the war, and we made ourselves strong in our
mountains. And there were the armies, looking for us and throwing their bombs
and bullets at us, and then they were making plans to kill off all the
indigenous at one time, because they did not know who was a zapatista and who
was not. And we were running and fighting, fighting and running, just like our
ancestors had done. Without giving up, without surrendering, without being
defeated.
And then the people from the cities went out into the streets and began shouting
for an end to the war. And then we stopped our war, and we listened to those
brothers and sisters from the city who were telling us to try to reach an
arrangement or an accord with the bad governments, so that the problem could be
resolved without a massacre. And so we paid attention to them, because they were
what we call "the people," or the Mexican people. And so we set aside the fire
and took up the word.
And it so happened that the governments said they would indeed be well-behaved,
and they would engage in dialogue, and they would make accords, and they would
fulfill them. And we said that was good, but we also thought it was good that we
knew those people who went out into the streets in order to stop the war. Then,
while we were engaging in dialogue with the bad governments, we were also
talking with those persons, and we saw that most of them were humble and simple
people like us, and both, they and we, understood quite well why we were
fighting. And we called those people "civil society" because most of them did
not belong to political parties, rather they were common, everyday people, like
us, simple and humble people.
But it so happened that the bad governments did not want a good agreement,
rather it was just their underhanded way of saying they were going to talk and
to reach accords, while they were preparing their attacks in order to eliminate
us once and for all. And so then they attacked us several times, but they did
not defeat us, because we resisted quite well, and many people throughout the
world mobilized. And then the bad governments thought that the problem was that
many people saw what was happening with the EZLN, and they started their plan of
acting as if nothing were going on. Meanwhile they were quick to surround us,
they laid siege to us in hopes that, since our mountains are indeed remote, the
people would then forget, since zapatista lands were so far away. And every so
often the bad governments tested us and tried to deceive us or to attack us,
like in February of 1995 when they threw a huge number of armies at us, but they
did not defeat us. Because, as they said then, we were not alone, and many
people helped us, and we resisted well.
And then the bad governments had to make accords with the EZLN, and those
accords were called the "San Andrés Accords" because the municipality where
those accords were signed was called "San Andrés." And we were not all alone in
those dialogues, speaking with people from the bad governments. We invited many
people and organizations who were, or are, engaged in the struggle for the
Indian peoples of Mexico, and everyone spoke their word, and everyone reached
agreement as to how we were going to speak with the bad governments. And that is
how that dialogue was, not just the zapatistas on one side and the governments
on the other. Instead, the Indian peoples of Mexico, and those who supported
them, were with the zapatistas. And then the bad governments said in those
accords that they were indeed going to recognize the rights of the Indian
peoples of Mexico, and they were going to respect their culture, and they were
going to make everything law in the Constitution. But then, once they had
signed, the bad governments acted as if they had forgotten about them, and many
years passed, and the accords were not fulfilled at all. Quite the opposite, the
government attacked the indigenous, in order to make them back out of the
struggle, as they did on December 22, 1997, the date on which Zedillo ordered
the killing of 45 men, women, old ones and children in the town in Chiapas
called ACTEAL. This immense crime was not so easily forgotten, and it was a
demonstration of how the bad governments color their hearts in order to attack
and assassinate those who rebel against injustices. And, while all of that was
going on, we zapatistas were putting our all into the fulfillment of the accords
and resisting in the mountains of the Mexican southeast.
And then we began speaking with other Indian peoples of Mexico and their
organizations, and we made an agreement with them that we were going to struggle
together for the same thing, for the recognition of indigenous rights and
culture. Now we were also being helped by many people from all over the world
and by persons who were well respected and whose word was quite great because
they were great intellectuals, artists and scientists from Mexico and from all
over the world. And we also held international encuentros. In other words, we
joined together to talk with persons from America and from Asia and from Europe
and from Africa and from Oceania, and we learned of their struggles and their
ways, and we said they were "intergalactic" encuentros, just to be silly and
because we had also invited those from other planets, but it appeared as if they
had not come, or perhaps they did come, but they did not make it clear.
But the bad governments did not keep their word anyway, and then we made a plan
to talk with many Mexicans so they would help us. And then, first in 1997, we
held a march to Mexico City which was called "of the 1,111" because a compañero
or compañera was going to go from each zapatista town, but the bad government
did not pay any attention. And then, in 1999, we held a consulta throughout the
country, and there it was seen that the majority were indeed in agreement with
the demands of the Indian peoples, but again the bad governments did not pay any
attention. And then, lastly, in 2001, we held what was called the "march for
indigenous dignity" which had much support from millions of Mexicans and people
from other countries, and it went to where the deputies and senators were, the
Congress of the Union, in order to demand the recognition of the Mexican
indigenous.
But it happened that no, the politicians from the PRI, the PAN and the PRD
reached an agreement among themselves, and they simply did not recognize
indigenous rights and culture. That was in April of 2001, and the politicians
demonstrated quite clearly there that they had no decency whatsoever, and they
were swine who thought only about making their good money as the bad politicians
they were. This must be remembered, because you will now be seeing that they are
going to say they will indeed recognize indigenous rights, but it is a lie they
are telling so we will vote for them. But they already had their chance, and
they did not keep their word.
And then we saw quite clearly that there was no point to dialogue and
negotiation with the bad governments of Mexico. That it was a waste of time for
us to be talking with the politicians, because neither their hearts nor their
words were honest. They were crooked, and they told lies that they would keep
their word, but they did not. In other words, on that day, when the politicians
from the PRI, PAN and PRD approved a law that was no good, they killed dialogue
once and for all, and they clearly stated that it did not matter what they had
agreed to and signed, because they did not keep their word. And then we did not
make any contacts with the federal branches. Because we understood that dialogue
and negotiation had failed as a result of those political parties. We saw that
blood did not matter to them, nor did death, suffering, mobilizations,
consultas, efforts, national and international statements, encuentros, accords,
signatures, commitments. And so the political class not only closed, one more
time, the door to the Indian peoples, they also delivered a mortal blow to the
peaceful resolution - through dialogue and negotiation - of the war. It can also
no longer be believed that the accords will be fulfilled by someone who comes
along with something or other. They should see that there so that they can learn
from experience what happened to us.
And then we saw all of that, and we wondered in our hearts what we were going to
do.
And the first thing we saw was that our heart was not the same as before, when
we began our struggle. It was larger, because now we had touched the hearts of
many good people. And we also saw that our heart was more hurt, it was more
wounded. And it was not wounded by the deceits of the bad governments, but
because, when we touched the hearts of others, we also touched their sorrows. It
was as if we were seeing ourselves in a mirror.
II. - Where We Are Now
Then, like the zapatistas we are, we thought that it was not enough to stop
engaging in dialogue with the government, but it was necessary to continue on
ahead in the struggle, in spite of those lazy parasites of politicians. The EZLN
then decided to carry out, alone and on their side ("unilateral", in other
words, because just one side), the San Andrés Accords regarding indigenous
rights and culture. For 4 years, since the middle of 2001 until the middle of
2005, we have devoted ourselves to this and to other things which we are going
to tell you about.
Fine, we then began encouraging the autonomous rebel zapatista municipalities -
which is how the peoples are organized in order to govern and to govern
themselves - in order to make themselves stronger. This method of autonomous
government was not simply invented by the EZLN, but rather it comes from several
centuries of indigenous resistance and from the zapatistas' own experience. It
is the self-governance of the communities. In other words, no one from outside
comes to govern, but the peoples themselves decide, among themselves, who
governs and how, and, if they do not obey, they are removed. If the one who
governs does not obey the people, they pursue them, they are removed from
authority, and another comes in.
But then we saw that the Autonomous Municipalities were not level. There were
some that were more advanced and which had more support from civil society, and
others were more neglected. The organization was lacking to make them more on a
par with each other. And we also saw that the EZLN, with its political-military
component, was involving itself in decisions which belonged to the democratic
authorities, "civilians" as they say. And here the problem is that the
political-military component of the EZLN is not democratic, because it is an
army. And we saw that the military being above, and the democratic below, was
not good, because what is democratic should not be decided militarily, it should
be the reverse: the democratic-political governing above, and the military
obeying below. Or, perhaps, it would be better with nothing below, just
completely level, without any military, and that is why the zapatistas are
soldiers so that there will not be any soldiers. Fine, what we then did about
this problem was to begin separating the political-military from the autonomous
and democratic aspects of organization in the zapatista communities. And so,
actions and decisions which had previously been made and taken by the EZLN were
being passed, little by little, to the democratically elected authorities in the
villages. It is easy to say, of course, but it was very difficult in practice,
because many years have passed - first in the preparation for the war and then
the war itself - and the political-military aspects have become customary. But,
regardless, we did so because it is our way to do what we say, because, if not,
why should we go around saying things if we do not then do them.
That was how the Good Government Juntas were born, in August of 2003, and,
through them, self-learning and the exercise of "govern obeying" has continued.
From that time and until the middle of 2005, the EZLN leadership has no longer
involved itself in giving orders in civil matters, but it has accompanied and
helped the authorities who are democratically elected by the peoples. It has
also kept watch that the peoples and national and international civil society
are kept well informed concerning the aid that is received and how it is used.
And now we are passing the work of safeguarding good government to the zapatista
support bases, with temporary positions which are rotated, so that everyone
learns and carries out this work. Because we believe that a people which does
not watch over its leaders is condemned to be enslaved, and we fought to be
free, not to change masters every six years.
The EZLN, during these 4 years, also handed over to the Good Government Juntas
and the Autonomous Municipalities the aid and contacts which they had attained
throughout Mexico and the world during these years of war and resistance. The
EZLN had also, during that time, been building economic and political support
which allowed the zapatista communities to make progress with fewer difficulties
in the building of their autonomy and in improving their living conditions. It
is not much, but it is far better than what they had prior to the beginning of
the uprising in January of 1994. If you look at one of those studies the
governments make, you will see that the only indigenous communities which have
improved their living conditions - whether in health, education, food or housing
- were those which are in zapatista territory, which is what we call where our
villages are. And all of that has been possible because of the progress made by
the zapatista villages and because of the very large support which has been
received from good and noble persons, whom we call "civil societies," and from
their organizations throughout the world. As if all of these people have made
"another world is possible" a reality, but through actions, not just words.
And the villages have made good progress. Now there are more compañeros and
compañeras who are learning to govern. And - even though little by little -
there are more women going into this work, but there is still a lack of respect
for the compañeras, and they need to participate more in the work of the
struggle. And, also through the Good Government Juntas, coordination has been
improved between the Autonomous Municipalities and the resolution of problems
with other organizations and with the official authorities. There has also been
much improvement in the projects in the communities, and the distribution of
projects and aid given by civil society from all over the world has become more
level. Health and education have improved, although there is still a good deal
lacking for it to be what it should be. The same is true for housing and food,
and in some areas there has been much improvement with the problem of land,
because the lands recovered from the finqueros are being distributed. But there
are areas which continue to suffer from a lack of lands to cultivate. And there
has been great improvement in the support from national and international civil
society, because previously everyone went wherever they wanted, and now the Good
Government Juntas are directing them to where the greatest need exists. And,
similarly, everywhere there are more compañeros and compañeras who are learning
to relate to persons from other parts of Mexico and of the world,. They are
learning to respect and to demand respect. They are learning that there are many
worlds, and that everyone has their place, their time and their way, and
therefore there must be mutual respect between everyone.
We, the zapatistas of the EZLN, have devoted this time to our primary force, to
the peoples who support us. And the situation has indeed improved some. No one
can say that the zapatista organization and struggle has been without point, but
rather, even if they were to do away with us completely, our struggle has indeed
been of some use.
But it is not just the zapatista villages which have grown - the EZLN has also
grown. Because what has happened during this time is that new generations have
renewed our entire organization. They have added new strength. The comandantes
and comandantas who were in their maturity at the beginning of the uprising in
1994 now have the wisdom they gained in the war and in the 12 years of dialogue
with thousands of men and women from throughout the world. The members of the
CCRI, the zapatista political-organizational leadership, is now counseling and
directing the new ones who are entering our struggle, as well as those who are
holding leadership positions. For some time now the "committees" (which is what
we call them) have been preparing an entire new generation of comandantes and
comandantas who, following a period of instruction and testing, are beginning to
learn the work of organizational leadership and to discharge their duties. And
it also so happens that our insurgents, insurgentas, militants, local and
regional responsables, as well as support bases, who were youngsters at the
beginning of the uprising, are now mature men and women, combat veterans and
natural leaders in their units and communities. And those who were children in
that January of '94 are now young people who have grown up in the resistance,
and they have been trained in the rebel dignity lifted up by their elders
throughout these 12 years of war. These young people have a political, technical
and cultural training that we who began the zapatista movement did not have.
This youth is now, more and more, sustaining our troops as well as leadership
positions in the organization. And, indeed, all of us have seen the deceits by
the Mexican political class and the destruction which their actions have caused
in our patria. And we have seen the great injustices and massacres that
neoliberal globalization causes throughout the world. But we will speak to you
of that later.
And so the EZLN has resisted 12 years of war, of military, political,
ideological and economic attacks, of siege, of harassment, of persecution, and
they have not vanquished us. We have not sold out nor surrendered, and we have
made progress. More compañeros from many places have entered into the struggle
so that, instead of making us weaker after so many years, we have become
stronger. Of course there are problems which can be resolved by more separation
of the political-military from the civil-democratic. But there are things, the
most important ones, such as our demands for which we struggle, which have not
been fully achieved.
To our way of thinking, and what we see in our heart, we have reached a point
where we cannot go any further, and, in addition, it is possible that we could
lose everything we have if we remain as we are and do nothing more in order to
move forward. The hour has come to take a risk once again and to take a step
which is dangerous but which is worthwhile. Because, perhaps united with other
social sectors who suffer from the same wants as we do, it will be possible to
achieve what we need and what we deserve. A new step forward in the indigenous
struggle is only possible if the indigenous join together with workers,
campesinos, students, teachers, employees...the workers of the city and the
countryside.
(To be continued...)
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee - General Command of the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
Mexico, in the sixth month of the year 2005.
Translated by irlandesa
III - How We See the World
Now we are going to explain to you how we, the zapatistas, see what is going
on in the world. We see that capitalism is the strongest right now. Capitalism
is a social system, a way in which a society goes about organizing things and
people, and who has and who has not, and who gives orders and who obeys. In
capitalism, there are some people who have money, or capital, and factories and
stores and fields and many things, and there are others who have nothing but
their strength and knowledge in order to work. In capitalism, those who have
money and things give the orders, and those who only have their ability to work
obey.
Then capitalism means that there a few who have great wealth, but they did not
win a prize, or find a treasure, or inherited from a parent. They obtained that
wealth, rather, by exploiting the work of the many. So capitalism is based on
the exploitation of the workers, which means they exploit the workers and take
out all the profits they can. This is done unjustly, because they do not pay the
worker what his work is worth. Instead they give him a salary that barely allows
him to eat a little and to rest for a bit, and the next day he goes back to work
in exploitation, whether in the countryside or in the city.
And capitalism also makes its wealth from plunder, or theft, because they take
what they want from others, land, for example, and natural resources. So
capitalism is a system where the robbers are free and they are admired and used
as examples.
And, in addition to exploiting and plundering, capitalism represses because it
imprisons and kills those who rebel against injustice.
Capitalism is most interested in merchandise, because when it is bought or sold,
profits are made. And then capitalism turns everything into merchandise, it
makes merchandise of people, of nature, of culture, of history, of conscience.
According to capitalism, everything must be able to be bought and sold. And it
hides everything behind the merchandise, so we don't see the exploitation that
exists. And then the merchandise is bought and sold in a market. And the market,
in addition to being used for buying and selling, is also used to hide the
exploitation of the workers. In the market, for example, we see coffee in its
little package or its pretty little jar, but we do not see the campesino who
suffered in order to harvest the coffee, and we do not see the coyote who paid
him so cheaply for his work, and we do not see the workers in the large company
working their hearts out to package the coffee. Or we see an appliance for
listening to music like cumbias, rancheras or corridos, or whatever, and we see
that it is very good because it has a good sound, but we do not see the worker
in the maquiladora who struggled for many hours, putting the cables and the
parts of the appliance together, and they barely paid her a pittance of money,
and she lives far away from work and spends a lot on the trip, and, in addition,
she runs the risk of being kidnapped, raped and killed as happens in Ciudad
Juárez in Mexico.
So we see merchandise in the market, but we do not see the exploitation with
which it was made. And then capitalism needs many markets...or a very large
market, a world market.
And so the capitalism of today is not the same as before, when the rich were
content with exploiting the workers in their own countries, but now they are on
a path which is called Neoliberal Globalization. This globalization means that
they no longer control the workers in one or several countries, but the
capitalists are trying to dominate everything all over the world. And the world,
or Planet Earth, is also called the "globe", and that is why they say
"globalization," or the entire world.
And neoliberalism is the idea that capitalism is free to dominate the entire
world, and so tough, you have to resign yourself and conform and not make a
fuss, in other words, not rebel. So neoliberalism is like the theory, the plan,
of capitalist globalization. And neoliberalism has its economic, political,
military and cultural plans. All of those plans have to do with dominating
everyone, and they repress or separate anyone who doesn't obey so that his
rebellious ideas aren't passed on to others.
Then, in neoliberal globalization, the great capitalists who live in the
countries which are powerful, like the United States, want the entire world to
be made into a big business where merchandise is produced like a great market. A
world market for buying and selling the entire world and for hiding all the
exploitation from the world. Then the global capitalists insert themselves
everywhere, in all the countries, in order to do their big business, their great
exploitation. Then they respect nothing, and they meddle wherever they wish. As
if they were conquering other countries. That is why we zapatistas say that
neoliberal globalization is a war of conquest of the entire world, a world war,
a war being waged by capitalism for global domination. Sometimes that conquest
is by armies who invade a country and conquer it by force. But sometimes it is
with the economy, in other words, the big capitalists put their money into
another country or they lend it money, but on the condition that they obey what
they tell them to do. And they also insert their ideas, with the capitalist
culture which is the culture of merchandise, of profits, of the market.
Then the one which wages the conquest, capitalism, does as it wants, it destroys
and changes what it does not like and eliminates what gets in its way. For
example, those who do not produce nor buy nor sell modern merchandise get in
their way, or those who rebel against that order. And they despise those who are
of no use to them. That is why the indigenous get in the way of neoliberal
capitalism, and that is why they despise them and want to eliminate them. And
neoliberal capitalism also gets rid of the laws which do not allow them to
exploit and to have a lot of profit. They demand that everything can be bought
and sold, and, since capitalism has all the money, it buys everything.
Capitalism destroys the countries it conquers with neoliberal globalization, but
it also wants to adapt everything, to make it over again, but in its own way, a
way which benefits capitalism and which doesn't allow anything to get in its
way. Then neoliberal globalization, capitalism, destroys what exists in these
countries, it destroys their culture, their language, their economic system,
their political system, and it also destroys the ways in which those who live in
that country relate to each other. So everything that makes a country a country
is left destroyed.
Then neoliberal globalization wants to destroy the nations of the world so that
only one Nation or country remains, the country of money, of capital. And
capitalism wants everything to be as it wants, in its own way, and it doesn't
like what is different, and it persecutes it and attacks it, or puts it off in a
corner and acts as if it doesn't exist.
Then, in short, the capitalism of global neoliberalism is based on exploitation,
plunder, contempt and repression of those who refuse. The same as before, but
now globalized, worldwide.
But it is not so easy for neoliberal globalization, because the exploited of
each country become discontented, and they will not say well, too bad, instead
they rebel. And those who remain and who are in the way resist, and they don't
allow themselves to be eliminated. And that is why we see, all over the world,
those who are being screwed over making resistances, not putting up with it, in
other words, they rebel, and not just in one country but wherever they abound.
And so, as there is a neoliberal globalization, there is a globalization of
rebellion.
And it is not just the workers of the countryside and of the city who appear in
this globalization of rebellion, but others also appear who are much persecuted
and despised for the same reason, for not letting themselves be dominated, like
women, young people, the indigenous, homosexuals, lesbians, transsexual persons,
migrants and many other groups who exist all over the world but who we do not
see until they shout ya basta of being despised, and they raise up, and then we
see them, we hear them, and we learn from them.
And then we see that all those groups of people are fighting against
neoliberalism, against the capitalist globalization plan, and they are
struggling for humanity.
And we are astonished when we see the stupidity of the neoliberals who want to
destroy all humanity with their wars and exploitations, but it also makes us
quite happy to see resistances and rebellions appearing everywhere, such as
ours, which is a bit small, but here we are. And we see this all over the world,
and now our heart learns that we are not alone.
IV - How We See Our Country Which is Mexico
Now we will talk to you about how we see what is going on in our Mexico.
What we see is our country being governed by neoliberals. So, as we already
explained, our leaders are destroying our nation, our Mexican Patria. And the
work of these bad leaders is not to look after the well-being of the people,
instead they are only concerned with the well-being of the capitalists. For
example, they make laws like the Free Trade Agreement, which end up leaving many
Mexicans destitute, like campesinos and small producers, because they are
"gobbled up" by the big agro-industrial companies. As well as workers and small
businesspeople, because they cannot compete with the large transnationals who
come in without anybody saying anything to them and even thanking them, and they
set their low salaries and their high prices. So some of the economic
foundations of our Mexico, which were the countryside and industry and national
commerce, are being quite destroyed, and just a bit of rubble - which they are
certainly going to sell off - remains.
And these are great disgraces for our Patria. Because food is no longer being
produced in our countryside, just what the big capitalists sell, and the good
lands are being stolen through trickery and with the help of the politicians.
What is happening in the countryside is the same as Porfirismo, but, instead of
hacendados, now there are a few foreign businesses which have well and truly
screwed the campesino. And, where before there were credits and price
protections, now there is just charity...and sometimes not even that.
As for the worker in the city, the factories close, and they are left without
work, or they open what are called maquiladoras, which are foreign and which pay
a pittance for many hours of work. And then the price of the goods the people
need doesn't matter, whether they are expensive or cheap, since there is no
money. And if someone was working in a small or midsize business, now they are
not, because it was closed, and it was bought by a big transnational. And if
someone had a small business, it disappeared as well, or they went to work
clandestinely for big businesses which exploit them terribly, and which even put
boys and girls to work. And if the worker belonged to his union in order to
demand his legal rights, then no, now the same union tells him he will have to
put up with his salary being lowered or his hours or his benefits being taken
away, because, if not, the business will close and move to another country. And
then there is the "microchangarro," which is the government's economic program
for putting all the city's workers on street corners selling gum or telephone
cards. In other words, absolute economic destruction in the cities as well.
And then what happens is that, with the people's economy being totally screwed
in the countryside as well as in the city, then many Mexican men and women have
to leave their Patria, Mexican lands, and go to seek work in another country,
the United States. And they do not treat them well there, instead they exploit
them, persecute them and treat them with contempt and even kill them. Under
neoliberalism which is being imposed by the bad governments, the economy has not
improved. Quite the opposite, the countryside is in great need, and there is no
work in the cities. What is happening is that Mexico is being turned into a
place where people are working for the wealth of foreigners, mostly rich
gringos, a place you are just born into for a little while, and in another
little while you die. That is why we say that Mexico is dominated by the United
States.
Now, it is not just that. Neoliberalism has also changed the Mexican political
class, the politicians, because they made them into something like employees in
a store, who have to do everything possible to sell everything and to sell it
very cheap. You have already seen that they changed the laws in order to remove
Article 27 from the Constitution so that ejidal and communal lands could be
sold. That was Salinas de Gortari, and he and his gangs said that it was for the
good of the countryside and the campesino, and that was how they would prosper
and live better. Has it been like that? The Mexican countryside is worse than
ever and the campesinos more screwed than under Porfirio Diaz. And they also say
they are going to privatize - sell to foreigners - the companies held by the
State to help the well-being of the people. Because the companies don't work
well and they need to be modernized, and it would be better to sell them. But,
instead of improving, the social rights which were won in the revolution of 1910
now make one sad...and courageous. And they also said that the borders must be
opened so all the foreign capital can enter, that way all the Mexican businesses
will be fixed, and things will be made better. But now we see that there are not
any national businesses, the foreigners gobbled them all up, and the things that
are sold are worse than the those that were made in Mexico.
And now the Mexican politicians also want to sell PEMEX, the oil which belongs
to all Mexicans, and the only difference is that some say everything should be
sold and others that only a part of it should be sold. And they also want to
privatize social security, and electricity and water and the forests and
everything, until nothing of Mexico is left, and our country will be a wasteland
or a place of entertainment for rich people from all over the world, and we
Mexican men and women will be their servants, dependent on what they offer, bad
housing, without roots, without culture, without even a Patria.
So the neoliberals want to kill Mexico, our Mexican Patria. And the political
parties not only do not defend it, they are the first to put themselves at the
service of foreigners, especially those from the United States, and they are the
ones who are in charge of deceiving us, making us look the other way while
everything is sold, and they are left with the money. All the political parties
that exist right now, not just some of them. Think about whether anything has
been done well, and you will see that no, nothing but theft and scams. And look
how all the politicians always have their nice houses and their nice cars and
luxuries. And they still want us to thank them and to vote for them again. And
it is obvious, as they say, that they are without shame. And they are without it
because they do not, in fact, have a Patria, they only have bank accounts.
And we also see that drug trafficking and crime has been increasing a lot. And
sometimes we think that criminals are like they show them in the songs or
movies, and maybe some are like that, but not the real chiefs. The real chiefs
go around very well dressed, they study outside the country, they are elegant,
they do not go around in hiding, they eat in good restaurants and they appear in
the papers, very pretty and well dressed at their parties. They are, as they
say, "good people", and some are even officials, deputies, senators, secretaries
of state, prosperous businessmen, police chiefs, generals.
Are we saying that politics serves no purpose? No, what we mean is that THAT
politics serves no purpose. And it is useless because it does not take the
people into account. It does not listen to them, it does not pay any attention
to them, it just approaches them when there are elections. And they do not even
want votes anymore, the polls are enough to say who wins. And then just promises
about what this one is going to do and what the other one is going to do, then
it's bye, I'll see you, but you don't see them again, except when they appear in
the news when they've just stolen a lot of money and nothing is going to be done
to them because the law - which those same politicians made - protects them.
Because that's another problem, the Constitution is all warped and changed now.
It's no longer the one that had the rights and liberties of working people. Now
there are the rights and liberties of the neoliberals so they can have their
huge profits. And the judges exist to serve those neoliberals, because they
always rule in favor of them, and those who are not rich get injustice, jails
and cemeteries.
Well, even with all this mess the neoliberals are making, there are Mexican men
and women who are organizing and making a resistance struggle.
And so we found out that there are indigenous, that their lands are far away
from us here in Chiapas, and they are making their autonomy and defending their
culture and caring for their land, forests and water.
And there are workers in the countryside, campesinos, who are organizing and
holding their marches and mobilizations in order to demand credits and aid for
the countryside. <>P> And there are workers in the city who do not let their
rights be taken away or their jobs privatized. They protest and demonstrate so
the little they have isn't taken away from them and so they don't take away from
the country what is, in fact, its own, like electricity, oil, social security,
education.
And there are students who don't let education be privatized and who are
fighting for it to be free and popular and scientific, so they don't charge, so
everyone can learn, and so they don't teach stupid things in schools.
And there are women who do not let themselves be treated as an ornament or be
humiliated and despised just for being women, but who are organizing and
fighting for the respect they deserve as the women they are.
And there are young people who don't accept their stultifying them with drugs or
persecuting them for their way of being, but who make themselves aware with
their music and their culture, their rebellion.
And there are homosexuals, lesbians, transsexuals and many ways who do not put
up with being ridiculed, despised, mistreated and even killed for having another
way which is different, with being treated like they are abnormal or criminals,
but who make their own organizations in order to defend their right to be
different.
And there are priests and nuns and those they call laypeople who are not with
the rich and who are not resigned, but who are organizing to accompany the
struggles of the people.
And there are those who are called social activists, who are men and women who
have been fighting all their lives for exploited people, and they are the same
ones who participated in the great strikes and workers' actions, in the great
citizens' mobilizations, in the great campesino movements, and who suffer great
repression, and who, even though some are old now, continue on without
surrendering, and they go everywhere, looking for the struggle, seeking justice,
and making leftist organizations, non-governmental organizations, human rights
organizations, organizations in defense of political prisoners and for the
disappeared, leftist publications, organizations of teachers or students, social
struggle, and even political-military organizations, and they are just not quiet
and they know a lot because they have seen a lot and lived and struggled.
And so we see in general that in our country, which is called Mexico, there are
many people who do not put up with things, who do not surrender, who do not sell
out. Who are dignified. And that makes us very pleased and happy, because with
all those people it's not going to be so easy for the neoliberals to win, and
perhaps it will be possible to save our Patria from the great thefts and
destruction they are doing. And we think that perhaps our "we" will include all
those rebellions...
(To be continued...)
V - What We Want To Do
We are now going to tell you what we want to do in the world and in Mexico,
because we cannot watch everything that is happening on our planet and just
remain quiet, as if it were only we were where we are.
What we want in the world is to tell all of those who are resisting and fighting
in their own ways and in their own countries, that you are not alone, that we,
the zapatistas, even though we are very small, are supporting you, and we are
going to look at how to help you in your struggles and to speak to you in order
to learn, because what we have, in fact, learned is to learn.
And we want to tell the Latin American peoples that we are proud to be a part of
you, even if it is a small part. We remember quite well how the continent was
also illuminated some years ago, and a light was called Che Guevara, as it had
previously been called Bolivar, because sometimes the people take up a name in
order to say they are taking up a flag.
And we want to tell the people of Cuba, who have now been on their path of
resistance for many years, that you are not alone, and we do not agree with the
blockade they are imposing, and we are going to see how to send you something,
even if it is maize, for your resistance. And we want to tell the North American
people that we know that the bad governments which you have and which spread
harm throughout the world is one thing - and those North Americans who struggle
in their country, and who are in solidarity with the struggles of other
countries, are a very different thing. And we want to tell the Mapuche brothers
and sisters in Chile that we are watching and learning from your struggles. And
to the Venezuelans, we see how well you are defending your sovereignty, your
nation's right to decide where it is going. And to the indigenous brothers and
sisters of Ecuador and Bolivia, we say you are giving a good lesson in history
to all of Latin America, because now you are indeed putting a halt to neoliberal
globalization. And to the piqueteros and to the young people of Argentina, we
want to tell you that, that we love you. And to those in Uruguay who want a
better country, we admire you. And to those who are sin tierra in Brazil, that
we respect you. And to all the young people of Latin America, that what you are
doing is good, and you give us great hope.
And we want to tell the brothers and sisters of Social Europe, that which is
dignified and rebel, that you are not alone. That your great movements against
the neoliberal wars bring us joy. That we are attentively watching your forms of
organization and your methods of struggle so that we can perhaps learn
something. That we are considering how we can help you in your struggles, and we
are not going to send euro because then they will be devalued because of the
European Union mess. But perhaps we will send you crafts and coffee so you can
market them and help you some in the tasks of your struggle. And perhaps we
might also send you some pozol, which gives much strength in the resistance, but
who knows if we will send it to you, because pozol is more our way, and what if
it were to hurt your bellies and weaken your struggles and the neoliberals
defeat you.
And we want to tell the brothers and sisters of Africa, Asia and Oceania that we
know that you are fighting also, and we want to learn more of your ideas and
practices.
And we want to tell the world that we want to make you large, so large that all
those worlds will fit, those worlds which are resisting because they want to
destroy the neoliberals and because they simply cannot stop fighting for
humanity.
Now then, what we want to do in Mexico is to make an agreement with persons and
organizations just of the left, because we believe that it is in the political
left where the idea of resisting neoliberal globalization is, and of making a
country where there will be justice, democracy and liberty for everyone. Not as
it is right now, where there is justice only for the rich, there is liberty only
for their big businesses, and there is democracy only for painting walls with
election propaganda. And because we believe that it is only from the left that a
plan of struggle can emerge, so that our Patria, which is Mexico, does not die.
And, then, what we think is that, with these persons and organizations of the
left, we will make a plan for going to all those parts of Mexico where there are
humble and simple people like ourselves.
And we are not going to tell them what they should do or give them orders.
Nor are we going to ask them to vote for a candidate, since we already know that
the ones who exist are neoliberals.
Nor are we going to tell them to be like us, nor to rise up in arms.
What we are going to do is to ask them what their lives are like, their
struggle, their thoughts about our country and what we should do so they do not
defeat us.
What we are going to do is to take heed of the thoughts of the simple and humble
people, and perhaps we will find there the same love which we feel for our
Patria.
And perhaps we will find agreement between those of us who are simple and humble
and, together, we will organize all over the country and reach agreement in our
struggles, which are alone right now, separated from each other, and we will
find something like a program that has what we all want, and a plan for how we
are going to achieve the realization of that program, which is called the
"national program of struggle."
And, with the agreement of the majority of those people whom we are going to
listen to, we will then engage in a struggle with everyone, with indigenous,
workers, campesinos, students, teachers, employees, women, children, old ones,
men, and with all of those of good heart and who want to struggle so that our
Patria called Mexico does not end up being destroyed and sold, and which still
exists between the Rio Grande and the Rio Suchiate and which has the Pacific
Ocean on one side and the Atlantic on the other.
VI - How We Are Going To Do It
And so this is our simple word that goes out to the humble and simple people of
Mexico and of the world, and we are calling our word of today:
Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona
And we are here to say, with our simple word, that...
The EZLN maintains its commitment to an offensive ceasefire, and it will not
make any attack against government forces or any offensive military movements.
The EZLN still maintains its commitment to insisting on the path of political
struggle through this peaceful initiative which we are now undertaking. The EZLN
continues, therefore, in its resolve to not establish any kind of secret
relations with either national political-military organizations or those from
other countries.
The EZLN reaffirms its commitment to defend, support and obey the zapatista
indigenous communities of which it is composed, and which are its supreme
command, and - without interfering in their internal democratic processes -
will, to the best of its abilities, contribute to the strengthening of their
autonomy, good government and improvement in their living conditions. In other
words, what we are going to do in Mexico and in the world, we are going to do
without arms, with a civil and peaceful movement, and without neglecting nor
ceasing to support our communities.
Therefore...
In the World...
1 - We will forge new relationships of mutual respect and support with persons
and organizations who are resisting and struggling against neoliberalism and for
humanity.
2 - As far as we are able, we will send material aid such as food and
handicrafts for those brothers and sisters who are struggling all over the
world.
In order to begin, we are going to ask the Good Government Junta of La Realidad
to loan their truck, which is called "Chompiras," and which appears to hold 8
tons, and we are going to fill it with maize and perhaps two 200 liter cans with
oil or petrol, as they prefer, and we are going to deliver it to the Cuban
Embassy in Mexico for them to send to the Cuban people as aid from the
zapatistas for their resistance against the North American blockade. Or perhaps
there might be a place closer to here where it could be delivered, because it's
always such a long distance to Mexico City, and what if "Chompiras" were to
break down and we'd end up in bad shape. And that will happen when the harvest
comes in, which is turning green right now in the fields, and if they don't
attack us, because if we were to send it during these next few months, it would
be nothing but corncobs, and they don't turn out well even in tamales, better in
November or December, it depends.
And we are also going to make an agreement with the women's crafts cooperatives
in order to send a good number of bordados, embroidered pieces, to the Europes
which are perhaps not yet Union, and perhaps we'll also send some organic coffee
from the zapatista cooperatives, so that they can sell it and get a little money
for their struggle. And, if it isn't sold, then they can always have a little
cup of coffee and talk about the anti-neoliberal struggle, and if it's a bit
cold then they can cover themselves up with the zapatista bordados, which do
indeed resist quite well being laundered by hand and by rocks, and, besides,
they don't run in the wash.
And we are also going to send the indigenous brothers and sisters of Bolivia and
Ecuador some non-transgenic maize, and we just don't know where to send them so
they arrive complete, but we are indeed willing to give this little bit of aid.
3 - And to all of those who are resisting throughout the world, we say there
must be other intercontinental encuentros held, even if just one other. Perhaps
December of this year or next January, we'll have to think about it. We don't
want to say just when, because this is about our agreeing equally on everything,
on where, on when, on how, on who. But not with a stage where just a few speak
and all the rest listen, but without a stage, just level and everyone speaking,
but orderly, otherwise it will just be a hubbub and the words won't be
understood, and with good organization everyone will hear and jot down in their
notebooks the words of resistance from others, so then everyone can go and talk
with their compañeros and compañeras in their worlds. And we think it might be
in a place that has a very large jail, because what if they were to repress us
and incarcerate us, and so that way we wouldn't be all piled up, prisoners, yes,
but well organized, and there in the jail we could continue the intercontinental
encuentros for humanity and against neoliberalism. Later on we'll tell you what
we shall do in order to reach agreement as to how we're going to come to
agreement. Now that is how we're thinking of doing what we want to do in the
world. Now follows...
In Mexico...
1 - We are going to continue fighting for the Indian peoples of Mexico, but now
not just for them and not with only them, but for all the exploited and
dispossessed of Mexico, with all of them and all over the country. And when we
say all the exploited of Mexico, we are also talking about the brothers and
sisters who have had to go to the United States in search of work in order to
survive.
2 - We are going to go to listen to, and talk directly with, without
intermediaries or mediation, the simple and humble of the Mexican people, and,
according to what we hear and learn, we are going to go about building, along
with those people who, like us, are humble and simple, a national program of
struggle, but a program which will be clearly of the left, or anti-capitalist,
or anti-neoliberal, or for justice, democracy and liberty for the Mexican
people.
3 - We are going to try to build, or rebuild, another way of doing politics, one
which once again has the spirit of serving others, without material interests,
with sacrifice, with dedication, with honesty, which keeps its word, whose only
payment is the satisfaction of duty performed, or like the militants of the left
did before, when they were not stopped by blows, jail or death, let alone by
dollar bills.
4 - We are also going to go about raising a struggle in order to demand that we
make a new Constitution, new laws which take into account the demands of the
Mexican people, which are: housing, land, work, food, health, education,
information, culture, independence, democracy, justice, liberty and peace. A new
Constitution which recognizes the rights and liberties of the people, and which
defends the weak in the face of the powerful.
TO THESE ENDS...
The EZLN will send a delegation of its leadership in order to do this work
throughout the national territory and for an indefinite period of time. This
zapatista delegation, along with those organizations and persons of the left who
join in this Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona, will go to those places
where they are expressly invited.
We are also letting you know that the EZLN will establish a policy of alliances
with non-electoral organizations and movements which define themselves, in
theory and practice, as being of the left, in accordance with the following
conditions:
Not to make agreements from above to be imposed below, but to make accords to go
together to listen and to organize outrage. Not to raise movements which are
later negotiated behind the backs of those who made them, but to always take
into account the opinions of those participating. Not to seek gifts, positions,
advantages, public positions, from the Power or those who aspire to it, but to
go beyond the election calendar. Not to try to resolve from above the problems
of our Nation, but to build FROM BELOW AND FOR BELOW an alternative to
neoliberal destruction, an alternative of the left for Mexico.
Yes to reciprocal respect for the autonomy and independence of organizations,
for their methods of struggle, for their ways of organizing, for their internal
decision making processes, for their legitimate representations. And yes to a
clear commitment for joint and coordinated defense of national sovereignty, with
intransigent opposition to privatization attempts of electricity, oil, water and
natural resources.
In other words, we are inviting the unregistered political and social
organizations of the left, and those persons who lay claim to the left and who
do not belong to registered political parties, to meet with us, at the time,
place and manner in which we shall propose at the proper time, to organize a
national campaign, visiting all possible corners of our Patria, in order to
listen to and organize the word of our people. It is like a campaign, then, but
very otherly, because it is not electoral.
Brothers and sisters:
This is our word which we declare:
In the world, we are going to join together more with the resistance struggles
against neoliberalism and for humanity.
And we are going to support, even if it's but little, those struggles.
And we are going to exchange, with mutual respect, experiences, histories,
ideas, dreams.
In Mexico, we are going to travel all over the country, through the ruins left
by the neoliberal wars and through those resistances which, entrenched, are
flourishing in those ruins.
We are going to seek, and to find, those who love these lands and these skies
even as much as we do.
We are going to seek, from La Realidad to Tijuana, those who want to organize,
struggle and build what may perhaps be the last hope this Nation - which has
been going on at least since the time when an eagle alighted on a nopal in order
to devour a snake - has of not dying.
We are going for democracy, liberty and justice for those of us who have been
denied it.
We are going with another politics, for a program of the left and for a new
Constitution.
We are inviting all indigenous, workers, campesinos, teachers, students,
housewives, neighbors, small businesspersons, small shop owners,
micro-businesspersons, pensioners, handicapped persons, religious men and women,
scientists, artists, intellectuals, young persons, women, old persons,
homosexuals and lesbians, boys and girls - to participate, whether individually
or collectively, directly with the zapatistas in this NATIONAL CAMPAIGN for
building another way of doing politics, for a program of national struggle of
the left, and for a new Constitution.
And so this is our word as to what we are going to do and how we are going to do
it. You will see whether you want to join.
And we are telling those men and women who are of good heart and intent, who are
in agreement with this word we are bringing out, and who are not afraid, or who
are afraid but who control it, to then state publicly whether they are in
agreement with this idea we are presenting, and in that way we will see once and
for all who and how and where and when this new step in the struggle is to be
made.
While you are thinking about it, we say to you that today, in the sixth month of
the year 2005, the men, women, children and old ones of the Zapatista Army of
National Liberation have now decided, and we have now subscribed to, this Sixth
Declaration of the Selva Lacandona, and those who know how to sign, signed, and
those who did not left their mark, but there are fewer now who do not know how,
because education has advanced here in this territory in rebellion for humanity
and against neoliberalism, that is in zapatista skies and land.
And this was our simple word sent out to the noble hearts of those simple and
humble people who resist and rebel against injustices all over the world.
Democracy!
Liberty!
Justice!
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