MISSION - keeganrs@gmail.com

My blog is about my dream for a world where everyone is allowed to exist and improving the quality of life of the world’s citizens is our priority.

For many reasons I reject the current path of the world.

Rich world insanity, excess and lies. Poor world denial of human rights and food. The destruction of the planet. Our homogenisation into one consuming mass of idiots.

We need to look for new ways. New human interactions at every level. New models of participation or at least rescuing old ones. Things like couchsurfing.com and woolf.org are steps in this direction as are the models of health and education being created and implemented in Venezuela.

We need to stand up and say "Enough!" to the current regimes and look to support all those initiatives for a better world and create our own. 

Sunday 19 April 2009

Reflections on my time in Oventic Language School - El centro de Español y de lenguas Mayas


After spending the last two weeks in Oventic, a Zapatista Carocol (which functions as an open space where people from all over the world can come for festivals or visit and speak with Zapatista's and where Zapatistas can come to speak with their elected authorities) learning the Mayan language Tzotzil.

Studying in Oventic is much more than just language classes. It's a chance to see the world upside down. The Zapatista struggle is not a struggle based on self interest, in fact the more I learn and see the more it seems that it's a struggle for the rest of Chiapas, Mexico and the world with the exclusion of their own needs.

The Zapatistas refused to sign an agreement which would have brought the new schools and clinics to their communities which they demanded because it wouldn't have addressed the fundamentals of the problems for the vast majority of Mexican's living in desperate conditions. So too are the education promoters in Oventic working for next to nothing for the benefit of their people. They don't get paid any money for their work despite 3 days minimum wage in the country of origin of the student going to the Zapatista organisation. (This works out at a cost of 5-10 days of Chiapas wages per day of class). The education promoters work passionately and purposefully share their time and knowledge with people from all over the world who have spent amounts of money they are never likely to have access to, in order to visit them. Then they have to go and tend to their chickens or vegetables or sew in order to make a wage to supplement their income of tostadas and beans. What is most impressive about the Zapatistas is the dignified co-operative way they go about their work no matter what it is.

I was studying Tzotzil, the first language of almost everyone in the municipals which make up the region of Oventic. I arrived with only a few words which I had learnt a year ago during my previous stay in the region. The task for my education promoters was a difficult one. The language itself has nothing in common with European languages other than a few Spanish words which have entered their language to represent things which didn't exist before the arrival of the conquistadors. Still we battled on in one on one classes learning a mixture of grammar, objects, jokes and traditional stories punctuated with coffee breaks and conversations in Spanish about the reality in Chiapas and our own personal stories.

Because it was only two weeks of classes I feel like I have met a lot of new words and sounds but I don't yet recognise them easily much less am I able to use them accurately. Still I feel that my Tzotzil will come together over the next few months in Chiapas. I think that it will help me to create more equal relations and to better understand the people I will be spending time with.

Outside of Tzotzil classes their was another kind of education. Hearing local peoples stories and talking to students in the autonomous secondary school which runs alongside the language school was an experience in itself. The history of the Zapatista struggle comes to life when these people tell you where they were and what role they played during pivotal events in their history. The inner strength and spirit of resistance comes out with every word of some of these diminutive giant revolutionaries.

Being on revolutionary land also brings other people hoping, dreaming and sometimes dedicating their lives to creating a new world. I was fortunate enough to be able to talk about the Zapatista movement as well as other struggles for a just world with Italians, Germans, Americans and people from all over Mexico. Each of them bringing their own experiences and point of view to Chiapas hoping to exchange something which doesn't have a cash value but is infinitely valuable. Some people bring a specific skill or medicine or a financial contribution, others support through their presence demonstrating that they support their struggle and stand together with them against domination and repression. What I take away from such a big experience can't easily be summarised in a few words. I was able to stay in a different world for a few weeks. A safe world where people work hard with little reward and few complaints; with the happiest kids I've ever seen and the most content teenagers who actually want to go to school; where the land produces food which is cared for and then used to support life; where people discuss and debate the world. In Oventic there exists many things which can be seen in few other parts of the world but which should be replicated.

In the beauty of the mountains surrounded by quiet caring people I felt peace. Sometimes I forgot I was in a war zone, then when I saw the masked security or a video of 30 tanks carrying hundreds of soldiers passing the place where I was and I remembered. I'm proud to have supported the struggle of these people in a few small ways over the last couple of years and this experience has only strengthened my connection to the Zapatista struggle.

To me Oventic is a place of hope, sacrifice, experience and knowledge. I am glad to have been able to be a small part of it for a short time and hope that others continue to do the same spreading the dream of another world across the globe to create as the Zapatistas say “un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos” (A world where a lot of world fit).