Comrades,
A few days ago, we sent out this letter inviting comrades in Mexico to join our campaign in solidarity with the Occupy Oakland movement, in California, USA. On November 20th, the Oakland Commune celebrated its one-month birthday, and in the past few weeks this movement has emerged as an important site of autonomous resistance and organization, in a city emblematic with a strong legacy of militancy and anti-capitalist activism. After the first attempt by the police to evict the camp on October 25, thousands took to the streets marching in protest and the police responded with brutal repression, using “chemical weapons” against the protesters. On October 26th, following a second march, at the General Assembly of Occupy Oakland 3,000 people approved a call for a General Strike on November 2nd. The Oakland General Strike on November 2nd (the first in the city since 1946) was an overwhelming success, blockading the Port of Oakland, with more than 50,000 people participating. Since then, the Occupy Oakland movement continues to resist, alongside related movements throughout the world, and we are very concerned by the possibility of another eviction attempt and more repression in the coming days. For these reasons, we feel it is extremely important to send this message of solidarity to our comrades on the Other Side of the border, to show our support.
Saludos rebeldes,
jóvenes en resistencia alternativa
November 13, 2011
To the Peoples of the World
To the Occupy Movement
To the Oakland Commune
To Our Sisters and Brothers in Struggle on the Other Side of the Border
We don’t need to remind you of the deep connections between Wall Street, Gringo Capitalism and our Mexican misery. From Imperialist wars to the initial experiments in agrobiotechnology, Mexico has been the principal landscape for offensives by northern capital. We have participated and continue to, in the uprising of the Zapatistas against the neoliberal attack of NAFTA. The uprising which set the spark for the movement against neoliberalism. We met each other at the summits of Seattle, Prague, Genoa, Miami and Cancun. We met each other through a great global conversation.
It’s been a long time since we fought together in the movement against neoliberalism and the world has changed since those times. Today the narco war is devastating our society. As two sides of the same coin, on one side we have the narco and on the other the militarization of the country. These two faces are crushing us from both sides. Although it seems like they fight, they are both at the service of capital and in the modern world local capital is connected in a strong fashion to global capital. In the last few months we have learned these connections between Wall Street and narco money. According to one analysis, narco money was the liquid capital necessary to rescue the banking sector from the initial hits of the financial crisis in 2008 [1]. Further, the huge quantity of drug profits needs a laundromat just as large. Although we don’t have a detailed balance, we know that Wall Street facilitates this laundering. For example according to the US justice department, one bank, Wachovia, laundered $378 billion narco dollars from Mexico between only 2004 and 2007. This bank fell and ironically was acquired by Wells Fargo, the same bank which still has the salaries of our fathers and grandfathers who worked in the bracero program. The same bank which funds detention centers for immigrants where our brothers and sisters die only trying to provide for their families.
But in Mexico there isn’t only the cultivation of misery. Here we drew one of the first lines of struggle against global capitalism in our laboratory of resistance. With humility in front of you, our comrades, we would like to tell of our experience. Encampments and occupations are common in Mexico and comrades joke about the lack of space to put up more encampments. But this isn’t by chance and was won through struggle. One recent example: in 2006, in the state of Oaxaca, the local teachers union setup an encampment in the center of Oaxaca City during their annual collective bargaining. One morning, on the 14th of June, the state police tried to take down the camp of the teachers and the city rose up, they not only retook the plaza but kicked the police out of the city. The Commune of Oaxaca was born on this day and the following 6 months transformed Oaxaca and the participants in the uprising. Like you, they also had problems of repression and representation. Against the repression they put up thousands of barricades each night to protect the population from the murderous paramilitaries of Governor Ulises Ruiz, who they struggled to kick out. Against the lying representation of the media, they took over their television and radio studios, collectivized the resources and began to have conversations that had never been had by those means.
We are following closely everything that is happening in Oakland. The police kill youth like Oscar Grant [2] and gravely injure anti-war veterans such as Scott Olsen [3]. The media lies about the popular participation in the movement and they propagate superficial divisions. The self-defense and self-representation of our movements are essential to our collective struggle. We invite you to learn from our experiences and we hope to learn from yours. Together and in concert we are toppling this miserable system.
In our stories you will see your story.
We Walk by Asking, We Reclaim by Occupying.
From Mexico with total support for Occupy Oakland.
SIGNED:
jóvenes en resistencia alternativa
Universidad de la Tierra en Oaxaca, A.C.
Colectivo Radio Zapatista
Regeneración Radio
Colectivo Cordyceps
Colectivo Noticias de la Rebelion
Amig@s de Mumia de Mexico
Furia de las Calles
El Centro Cultural La Piramide
Marea Creciente México (Capítulo del red internacional por justícia climática Rising Tide)
Konvergencia Gráfica
Sublevarte Collective
Hacklab Autónomo
El Enemigo Común
Centro Social Okupado “Casa Naranja”
Gustavo Esteva, Oaxaca, México
Bocafloja, DF, México
Patricia Westendarp, Querétaro, México
Alejandro Reyes Arias, Chiapas, México
José Rabasa, México
Cristian Guerrero, México
——————-
[1] http://www.saboteamos.info/2011/05/26/imperialismo-banqueros-guerra-de-la-droga-y-genocidio-en-mexico/
[2] kaosenlared.net/noticia/policia-mata-sangre-fria-joven-negro-desarmado
[3] http://pueblossinfronteras.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/veterano-de-guerra-de-irak-herido-por-policias-de-oakland-california/
