La Sexta

The Mayan people of the Yucaton fought a fierce, relentless armed uprising through the 19th Century into the 20th Century. In the midst of this struggle Mayan crosses - the crosses that were worshipped long before Christianity arrived in the Americas - the crosses that represented the Ceiba Trees, the pillars of the universe - talked.

The crosses said the Mayan People are a chosen people, destined to lead - not only indigenas people in the Americas, but all free humans - in a great, terrible, final struggle at the end of time, at the end of the world-as-we-know it.

The crosses said the Mayan People are destined to be transcendent liberators of humanity.

On New Years Day, 2006 when Marcos and his army of unarmed men, women, and children marched into San Cristobal de las Casas - the crowd shouted, "Viva La Sexta."

The Sexta - the 6th declaration of the Zapatista Army made on the sixth month, June of 2005 - is a 14-page document that gives a worldview, a mission for the Mayan People that is a seamless continuity with the message of the talking crosses.

"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," is the preamble.

In telling the world why the Mayan People rebel a dark vision, a dark epiphany of the world, of reality is given. "Now we, the Zapatistas of the EZLN (the Zapatista Army), rose up in arms...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!" (Enough!), that no longer were we going to allow them to make us inferior or to treat us worse than animals...politicians have demonstrated, quite clearly, that they have no decency, whatsoever, and they are swine who think only about their money...modern capitalism (neo-liberalism) turns everything into merchandise, it makes merchandise of people, of nature, of culture, of history, of conscience...neoliberal globalization wants to destroy the nations of the world so that only one Nation or country remains - the country of money."

The Sexta urges all who are resisting the dispossession and enslavement of humanity to join together and create a not-business-as-usual world - the other country which is comprised of autonomous communities, a unified resistance. "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...autonomous government is not an invention of the EZLN, but rather it comes from several centuries of indigenas resistance...no one from outside is allowed to govern, but the peoples themselves decide among themselves, who governs and how, and if they do not obey the peoples, they are removed."

In the Sexta the Mayan People tell of their mission to lead the resistance by their example, by being servants of free humanity. "...all of those who are resisting and fighting, in their own ways. We want to tell you 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 learned is - how to learn...We are going to exchange, with mutual respect, experiences, histories, ideas, dreams...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 simply cannot stop fighting for free humanity.





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