"Can a book explode like a bomb?" asks Mexican author Elena Poniatowska. Can questions and words explode? Just wanted to share an intriguing thought & some ideas from a Chicano point of view FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE FOR RELEASE: WEEK OF JAN 3, 2003 COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS by Patrisia Gonzales and Roberto Rodriguez SWORDS, STONES, WATER, WORDS THE STORY OF SWORDS In the old times, the sword fought with the stone, the tree and the water. The tree said it was stronger, until it was cut down by the sword. The rock and sword fought 'til they both cried and one was dissolved to pieces and the other made dull. But water did not boast. It just let the sword thrash until it settled in water's recesses, and rusted and dulled to stillness. This is old Antonio's story about having patience like water, of fighting like water. It is a parable of indigenous knowledge and how native peoples have survived Europeans who came thrashing with swords, or Mexican troops that thrashed the jungles and villages of Chiapas, as told by Subcomandante Marcos in "Questions and Swords: Folktales of the Zapatista Revolution" (Cinco Puntos Press, $22). Old Antonio is a real person who symbolizes Zapatismo and appears often in the subcomandante's poetic communiques. The book is illustrated by Domitila Dominguez, a Mazateca Indian, and Antonio Ramirez, and includes essays by Simon Ortiz and Elena Poniatowska. Nine years since the Zapatista Army for National Liberation declared its "war against oblivion," and the Zapatistas are still water. Little is heard of them. And now the world awaits the amorphous world war against terrorism. The president takes the first smallpox vaccination as the United States prepares for germ warfare. Which of us will fight like trees and bend in the storm, which of us will be like rocks against the harsh climate to come, and which of us will flow like water through war's palm? Or fight like the sword, as old Antonio says, against a wild animal? Which of us will become the sword, the rock, the tree, the water? Old Antonio recounts: "This is what our grandfathers did. ... They resisted like water resisted the most savage of blows. The foreigner came here with his power and scared the weak. He thought he had won, but with time he became old and full of rust. The stranger ended up in a corner full of shame and without understanding why, if he had won, he ended up lost." A native elder commented following the Sept. 11 attacks, "Now they (the United States) will know what it means to suffer." "We will never forget," read 9/11 bumper stickers. Yes. None of us should ever forget. Smallpox blankets distributed by the U.S. Army decimated indigenous peoples, and we know native people who reject used closing because of that memory. In Mexican bakeries, the memory of the smallpox epidemic brought by Europeans is preserved in the "cocol," or smallpox cookie. It is pocked with sugar. Cocoliztli is the Nahuatl word for illness. This is how the stories are kept alive. So that someone will ask, why? Telling the story is "living the story" and the living of history, writes Acoma poet and author Ortiz in his essay, "Haah-ah, mah-eemah/Yes, it's the very truth." "Indian people know history is lived in the time and the moment it is taking place. History is in the moment. History is not the past. Nor is it the future. And you ask questions so you will know history is taking place. You live history therefore," he writes. "And with our questions, that is the history we are living." All over the world, indigenous people are struggling for life itself: the water, the air, the lungs of the Amazon and the Earth, genetically modified foods and our food chain. We do not fight only for ourselves. We fight for everyone, for the Earth herself. What will be of the water? What will be of our cornfields? What will happen to the people? What will we do today that will tilt the universe toward justice? THE STORY OF QUESTIONS "Can a book explode like a bomb?" asks Mexican author Elena Poniatowska. Can questions and words explode? But now to ask questions is unpatriotic, un-American, undermining, uncaring, unforgivable, undoing. Listen to old Antonio: "This is how the true men and women learned that questions are for walking, not just for sitting around and doing nothing. And since then, when true men and women want to walk, they ask questions. When they want to arrive they take leave. And when they want to leave, they say hello. They are never still." Can words bend a sword? Let us change history with our questions. Unsilence our truth. Unread the lies. And, as the old ones say, let us become like rushing water. COPYRIGHT 2002 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE *** Advancing the Cause of Humanity awards: We will shortly be honoring people, grups and organizations that have advanced the cause of humanity. If you would like someone honored, please forward their name and a brief reason as to why they should so be honored. Please reply to: <A HREF="mailto:XColumn@aol.com">XColumn@aol.com</A> There are no monetray rewards. Its purpose is simply to expose readers across the nation to those that toil daily to make this world a better place to live. (Please sign your name also) Thanks in advance Roberto Rodriguez & Patrisia Gonzales Column of the Americas Column of the Americas is posted every Friday and archived under "Opinion" at www.uexpress.com Gonzales & Rodriguez can be reached at 817-929-3805 or XColumn@aol.com If you would like to see it in your local newspaper, please call/write your local editor. For speaking availability, publications and other info, call/write us or visit us at: http://hometown.aol.com/xcolumn/myhomepage/index.html For information regarding CANTOS AL SEXTO SOL, go to Wings Press ( http://www.wingspress.com/) or milligan@wingspress.com Please ask for it at your favorite local bookstore and library. It will soon be available online through Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com. * For Information regarding the Aztlanahuac Project, write to: <A HREF="http://www.beacon.org,">Aztlanahuac@aol.com</A> 817-929-3805 or go to the informational page at: http://hometown.aol.com/aztlanahuac/myhomepage/index.html * IF LINKS ARE NOT ACTIVE, CUT AND PASTE.
Ok maybe we should make Usama cookies, Bush Bourbon and Saddam Pretzels wit Mustard, to keep future generations aware of our repeating history
And the usa millitary industrial complex is a smart tree , that let the sword and the stone fight among themselves so that he can meanwhile drink the water....
This could be a discription of the Quran, the Bible, Das Kapital or other revolutionary documents Not talking about moonshine, are we?
Mexica Movement Manifesto Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! We do hereby declare the following manifesto in order to free our people from the descendants of Europeans (Anglo-American, Latinos-Hispanics, Euro-Mexicans and other "whites") who have illegally and stubbornly remained on our land through their deceit, the enslavement of our people, racial rape, and the cultural castration of our people. They have fortified their position as trespassers and thieves by destroying our identity, history, heritage and independent Anahuac Indigenous thought. They have committed the genocide of 23 million of our Anahuac people in order to take our land and to dominate our lives and wealth. The only way that we can remove them as the power over our lives is through dedicating our lives to the following three points: 1) COMMITMENT TO STUDYING AND TEACHING THE PRE-EUROPEAN HISTORY OF OUR PEOPLE. Without this knowledge of the Indigenous history of our people we will remain forever ignorant and subject to the controlling interests of Europeans and their descendant amongst us. 2) OUR ANAHUAC INDIGENOUS IDENTITY includes all the Original Inhabitants of Anahuac (Mexico & Central America) and Aztlan (so-called U.S. Southwest). We are equal "Indigenous" brothers and sisters: the full blood and the mixed-blood ("mestizo") Mexica. We are a people in the process of reclaiming our identity, heritage, history, honor, pride, dignity, language, land, and destiny. We are not native to being English or Spanish speakers, not of the culture of Europe. Nahuatl is the language which we wish to reclaim as a national language, along with maintaining our other Original Inhabitant languages. 3) OUR HERITAGE MUST BE RECLAIMED: We must declare again and again that we are the true owners of the lands of Anahuac and Aztlan. We must work and struggle to take our lands back under our control. Our lands are those of the Olmeca, Zapoteca, Teotihuacan, Maya, Toltec, Mexica and the other civilizations and cultures of Anahuac and Aztlan. Costa Rica to Aztlan is what our lands are composed of.
yes books can explode, so can most worded things, t-shirts, cereal packets. My bumper sticker on my car blew up the other day...
la raza will be back Less well known, but significant, were efforts to implement the 1915 "Plan de San Diego."17 The plan was drafted under hazy circumstances in San Diego, Texas, and called for conspirators to "reclaim for themselves the territory comprising Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and California," promote a race war and put to death every North American male over the age of 16.18 As many as several thousand Mexican adherents in Texas and Mexico carried out numerous raids and attacks in the Lower Rio Grande Valley for several years, striking isolated ranches and farms, attacking trains or tearing up tracks and hitting other targets of opportunity. The raids were eventually put down—sometimes brutally—by Texas Rangers, the Army and other law enforcement elements that were for a time all put under the control of US Army General Frederick Funston's Southern Department.19 These irredentist hopes and plans still echo from time to time on the Internet home pages of anarchist and other dissident groups. Some of these formulations seek to reestablish a mythical "Azatlan"—the supposed origin of Aztec, Mayan and Inca peoples that some assert encompasses US territory formerly belonging to Mexico
mecha (lets get it on) In 1970, the University of Texas at El Paso MEChA group declared: "We do not seek assimilation; we seek self-preservation of our culture and language." The San Diego City College MEChA declared the 5 U.S. southwestern states were no longer part of the U.S., lowered the American flag & raised the Aztlan flag in its place. In 1971, U.C. Santa Barbara MEChA was asked to work with campus police to avoid violence. Their reply: "...we view the campus police as an integral part of this whole repressive system...we cannot accept this 'kiss of death'...que viva la revolucion (long live the revolution)!" In May 1993, MEChA at UCLA spearheaded the riot that caused $500,000 damage to that campus when they occupied buildings & demanded full department status for Chicano studies. MIGUEL PEREZ, Cal State Northridge MEChA: "The ultimate ideology is the liberation of Aztlan". When asked his preference of government, said, "Communism would be closest. Non-Chicanos would have to be expelled ...opposition groups would be quashed because you have to keep the power." PROF. RUDY ACUNA, MEChA advisor, Cal State Northridge, self-described Socialist: "Chicanos have to get a lot more militant about defending our rights" and promoted violence by his 1993 national telecom to Hispanic students to "TAKE BACK YOUR HISTORY". MEChA STUDENT, 3/97 Rally, L.A. City Hall: "When the people in this building don't listen to the demands of our community, it's time to burn it down!" MEChA STATEWIDE CONFERENCE, 11/96: 1000 students parents were addressed with focus on the fury about PROP 187 & PROP 209. Two Anglo members of the press were forcibly removed as they fear infiltration. DOLORES HUERTA (United Farm Workers): "We need a Chicano Bill of Rights! President Clinton spoke with me face to face and he said he'll do away with the art of the new welfare reform bill that takes away welfare and food stamps from legal immigrants. You students can join us, and we'll train you to be organizers." JUMP TO TOP OF PAGE RUDY ACUNA: "You are living in Nazi U.S. We can't let them take us to those intellectual ovens." JUANA MORA Administrator, CSUN: "...now only WHITE students will have access to education." MEChA NATIONAL CONFERENCE, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY, 4/97: Featured huge drawing of EMILIANO ZAPATA holding rifle on knees as face page of their program "CH" was replaced by "X", i.e., Chicano now "XICANO", MEChA now "MEXA", etc. Their Program statements included: "National revolution is the theme for this year's MEXA conference" "Throughout Latin America, the university provides the embryo of resistance...the PLO found birth in the university...Cuban revolutionaries as well" "We of the university are becoming a privileged few - we become part of the machinery that enslaves our nation. We must reject this and become a nation within a nation with a national plan of action as new soldiers in our struggle for national independence, and an emerging XICANO nation." "This is revolution at its basic level, moving the people toward more confrontational politics." "Only we can move our families and our communities toward becoming a united people again in building an XICANO nation. We are NOT American or Mexican...we are XICANO, and we must find own way to form a new visible, viable Indian nation within a nation." "We should do everything we can to promote the Spanish language as a means of solidarity among XICANOS." MEChA LITERATURE, U.C. IRVINE: Referencing AZTLAN (U.S. Southwest) - "This land is ours and always will be."
Los Angeles, Alta California - 3/6/2002 - (ACN) A group of conservative Jewish/White students have made unsubstantiated accusations against the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) at the University of California at Berkeley. A few members of the racist and ultra right wing publication called the Patriot have accused MEChA of being common "bandidos" in a case where supposedly 3,000 copies of their recent edition disappeared overnight from their offices on campus. An independent preliminary investigation into the case by La Voz de Aztlan has provided indications that the theft may have been an inside job. It appears that the purported 3,000 copies were actually never printed and that someone within the Patriot may have pocketed the money. This is not the first time that MEChA has been the victim of false, racist and bigoted accusations as well as physical attacks by KKK and Hillel type students on campuses. On the weekend of October 25th, 2000 the MEChA office at the University of Texas at El Paso was vandalized by racist students. The bigots involved smashed computers and left racist anti-Mexican slurs written on the walls of the office. Just last month, the conservative Jewish/White Cornell Review launched an unconscionable racist diatribe against a young female student of Mexican descent that was chased around campus by 7 white baseball bat wielding thugs. It is believed that the white thugs at Cornell are members of the same group of students that run the Patriot at U.C. Berkeley. There is a definite connection between both groups and other racist groups on campuses through out the country that are increasingly acting out against students of Mexican descent, Muslim students and certain Afro-American students who believe that Jews were actively involved in the slave trade. http://aztlan.net/berkbigots.htm
