Zapatistas Hold First Global Festival of Dignified Rage

We are alone, alone with our dignity and our rage.
Rage and dignity are our bridges, our languages.
We must listen to each other then, learn to know each other.
So that our courage and rage grows and becomes hope.
So that our dignity takes root again and births another world.

Three years after the Sixth Declaration, on Sept. 16, 2008, the Zapatista Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee, announced the World Festival of Dignified Rage, which has the theme of “Another World, Another Path: Below and to the Left.” The gathering, not only commemorates the path and history of the Zapatista movement but creates a space where all the “rebellious of Mexico and the world,” all these diverse rages could find, meet, learn, and relate to each other.

Marcos writes, “…there is a rage against everything that is going on, in our country as well as in the world. This rage is not mere anger or resentment, but rather has two essential elements: it is a rage that is the consequence of an injured dignity and it is a creative rage, that is, it points towards a transformation of the situation.”

“We also see that there are many differences between these proud rages that we see, listen to and feel. Not just in that which is obvious (such as geography), but also in the way and the path, destination, speed and rhythm of their steps. Nevertheless, we think they have something in common: the aggressor who causes this rage is the same one: a system, capitalism, which destroys dignity above all.”

The festival brought together over 140 organizations from 20 different countries, including those which work on alternative media, human rights defense, in schools and universities, against repression, for the disappeared, for liberation of political prisoners, in social and political organizations, in art and culture, in unions, in women’s struggle, with the maquila workers, in the environmental struggle, in sexual diversity, in the teacher’s movement, in the countryside, with the sexual workers, and in the indigenous movement. The festival, which consisted of cultural activities, speaker panels and forums, film presentations, and exhibition booths for participating organizations, was held in Mexico City as well as Chiapas from December 26th 2008 to January 5th 2009.

For more information, see:
Audio recordings in Spanish of all panels held during the festival are available online at http://dignarabia.ezln.org.mx.