We're fighting for your rights

Heres a serious post this time,I just thought that this declaration of intent by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) by Subcommandante Marcos named after a friend who was killed at a checkpoint (also known as delegate zero) deserved to be brought to greater attention.

The EZLN or Zapatistas, are Mexican resistance group operating mainly in the state of Chiapos; the most southern state in Mexico, founded in opposition to increased oppression and exploitation of the indigenous population the group has expanded to include rural peoples of all ethnicities and even has some support in more urban areas. After there uprising in 1994 was suppressed by the Mexican army they instead turned to a more defensive campaign only using armed violence against incursions into there territory. The name Zapatista comes from the famous Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata pictured left, who fought for the rural peasantry in the 1910 Revolution.

In International politics many states leaders and peoples make is to assume that what they consider to be true beneficial and rational to them is universal and anyone who actively disagrees to either be dense, insane or inherently evil. Hell the only time a Palestinian group is guaranteed dedicated news coverage nowadays is either during an Intifada when Hamas begins firing Qassams over the barricades and then you'll only here the numbers being fired repeated like a rallying cry, but strangely enough never how many of them actually kill or hit anything or the much more accurate and deadly Israeli weapons being used on the Palestinians both before and after said rocket launches, probably because that would make this big scary threat seem a lot less.... well threatening.

Fortunately for the EZLN they're somewhat better at communicating with the wider world believing that the internet has fundamentally altered the relationship between the audience and the content makers the EZLN has been very active in communicating there goals and ideas to the wider world, "the important thing is the spectacle that you make out of an event in the media, as opposed to the event itself". But there's still quite a lot of work to be done. Heres an archive of Zapatista documents translated into English quite interesting reading.

And to end on a more uplifting note why not a closing song? here is the himno zapatista the anthem of the EZLN enjoy.