This is an excerpt of Palestine 1492: A Report Back, by Linda Quiquivix
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That night on Star Street when I met the nabi triplets, the identical ten-year-olds Musa, Issa, and Mohammed, I learned that of the three it had been Issa who didn’t like me. All that time I was living in Bethlehem, Jesus had been making faces and trying to whack me.
Moses had been the quieter triplet, very polite. It would be their brother Mohammed, the one whose namesake was the most mysterious to me, who would gift me the flower and help make things right between Jesus and me that night. And not one flower but two, both from the trash.
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It was true that Jesus and I had historical tension. I had been raised by a Christian culture of varying degrees of ethics and integrity, getting me into a fight with Jesus. My grandmother had lived as a good role model of what being Christian can be, may she rest in peace. My mother has as well, but she left the church long ago, “For its hypocrisy,” she says. She still believes in God though. I have learned much from my mother, not hesitating to leave bad situations, exiting groups and institutions for their hypocrisy, whether it’s electoral politics, academia, leftist organizations, sometimes fleeing, sometimes purged. But still, I believe. Still, in love and justice I believe. They are a necessity to me.
In the United States, the loudest voices on Jesus are on TV. Those Christian voices raised me, too. That most of them don’t serve others and only serve themselves had made me angry at Jesus even if it hadn’t been his fault. I hadn’t considered until that night on Star Street that Jesus could be mad at me, too.
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I used to insist for a long time about Israel/Palestine that, “This is not about religion,” although I knew better than that. But I was mad at religion and thought I could separate it from politics and economics, as if questions of ethics could be so easily separated from politics and economics.[1] I also didn’t know how to talk about religion and still stumble when I do. I never want to insult any religion or keep pitting religions against religions like empires do. I think a lot of people share that, too.
Having been raised by Christianity from above and Christianity from below, I had known a bit about Judaism, more about Christianity, and was both curious and afraid of Islam until Palestine made me more curious than afraid. It was hardest for me to learn about Islam. The loudest Muslim voices in the United States wish to be loved by empire, and I wasn’t going to ask them. I also don’t trust anyone eager to convert me into their world, whether religious or secular.
Back when I was preparing to live in Palestine, I asked Palestinian friends in the United States how to handle the question about my religion. “When people are curious, how should I respond?” I asked. I am neither Jewish, Christian, nor Muslim. My faith is not tied to Palestine’s ancestor Abraham, or to any of the other Asian faiths. I am also not an atheist. My ancestors are Maya and Afrikan, and I like very much their worlds when they are from below, both from before and from after. Would Palestinians know how to interpret that?
“They probably won’t know what to do with you,” a Palestinian friend replied back then. He was raised Christian in the United States and also hadn’t known how to talk about religion. In the end, I decided to respond in Palestine whenever asked, “I was raised Christian,” which was not a lie and was even nice. It had made me somewhat literate in Christianity, thus a little conversant in Palestine, even if just a little bit.
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I was raised Christian because Columbus had been a crusader, imposing empire’s version of Christianity on the earth. Empire has a religion even if it calls itself secular, even if it’s a co-opted religion, it’s still part of that religion. No matter how much it changes its name and face and co-opts our words and worlds, the Devil remains Devil. So how is empire not about both politics and economics and religion, too? How is empire not about imposing one world at the expense of other worlds?
Colonialism may not have a single religion, but it is false to say that colonialism has no religion. People who say that may just not want to insult religions or keep pitting religions against religions like empires do. People who say that just may not know how to talk about religion. If that is the case, it is important for us to study and learn from those who do.
“A world where all the worlds fit” is the remedy to empire, to extinction, to colonialism, I am convinced. How do we begin working toward that without recognizing that religions are worlds? Secular activists, influencers, academics, politicians, and aspiring politicians don’t know how to talk about this, or maybe they don’t want to. Many don’t have a problem with empire. Often the loudest secular voices wish to be accepted by empire and police others from bringing up either questions of religion or critiques of empire.
Capitalism is called secular, yet it shapes all social relations. So how is capitalism not like a religion? Nationalism is called secular, yet people are willing to die in the name of it. So how is nationalism not like a religion? A world where all the worlds fit is a question of global social relations, a question of sharing the world with all our difference. It is a question bigger than resistance, it is a question of liberation.
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The Christian liberation theology center in Palestine, Sabeel, held a conference in 2011 where I first met Christian anarchists and Marxists who don’t really use those labels of anarchists and Marxists. Among them were Richard Horsley, Ched Myers, and Elaine Enns who didn’t seem to get upset if I referred to them anarchists or Marxists, depending. They reminded me that Jesus was not only resisting but seeking liberation against empire, a history I recalled hearing about Jesus before, but which got drowned out by empire.
The labels anarchist and Marxist carry a lot of baggage. But heavy words can be helpful in trying to find others critical of domination and capitalism. Just like the word Christian carries a lot of baggage but can be helpful in finding others who share something important, even if it turns out in the end they want opposing worlds. Words can lose their usefulness fast, especially once they’re co-opted. I avoid using labels to describe myself, although I haven’t fully given up on the word “leftist,” although I’m close to giving up on it. People think they already know you because they think they know what those labels mean.
The way I use “left” is to describe a political horizon that respects difference and “right” as the political horizon that disrespects difference. There exists a below to the right that seeks to rise above, desires a seat at the table, hopes to impose their way on others and take the place of the oppressor. There also exists a left from above that pretends to respect difference, one that is fine with people looking different and even acting different, but one that doesn’t want people to be different. Both the left from above and the below to the right do not seek to undo the relation of domination that is above/below.
“From below and to the left” means, to me, a political horizon that seeks to escape from the above/below relation to share the world together with all our difference. We don’t have to call this “left” and can call it something else, but we do need to be clear about our proposals vis-a-vis other struggles, vis-a-vis each other as we’re being crushed by this world.
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Does it help or does it hurt to call a movement “leftist” anymore? I’ve borrowed this phrase from the Zapatistas before, “from below and to the left.” The word “left” seems to be completely devoid of real meaning today, co-opted like the word Christian before it, like the word Islam before it, like the word Judaism before it. Co-optation isn’t sufficient reason to give up on words or to give up on movements. Co-optation becomes part of the reality of the movement and should be part of the story that’s told and resisted. Just like with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In the United States, where a culture does not exist to talk about how words are used differently, the word “leftist” means the same thing as “liberal” or as “progressive” to many people. Everyone seems to think they know someone by the words they use instead of asking how they’re using those words.
When I use the word “left” in “from below and to the left” I use it to make a distinction between it and “from below and to the right,” the tragic dominant posture of the below as I have experienced the below. To be below is to be crushed by the above. To be below and to the right is to wish to become the above, to become like the masters, to impose one’s world on and crush the other belows. To be to the right is to not respect difference. There exist Christianities from below and to the right. There exist Judaisms, Islams, Buddhisms, Hinduisms, Marxisms, Anarchisms from below and to the right, as well as from above and to the right and from above and to the left.
If not the word “left,” is there another word we can use to convoke and to affirm an ethical posture against injustice, a vision of sharing the world with all our difference?
I can be convinced to give up on the word “left,” but not without insisting much of the below doesn’t want to escape together to create the world anew. So, what words do we use to talk about that part, too, about our common vision and not just talk about the below?
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There is identity, and in the dominant world, there is identity within a context of domination, within a context of above vs below. In a global context, what we each do affects the other. If this context is ignored, a false solidarity grows, a false unity grows, an identity politics grows that wishes instead to crush and use other worlds, to be incorporated into the dominant world, not to create the world anew.
A world anew requires a brave answer to the question, Could it be another way? What will it take for the answer to be Yes by each of us, and in our own geographies, in our own calendars, and our own ways? What will it take for us to keep finding each other along the way? What will it take for us to really mean it, where we’re not simply using words, co-opting words, where we’re not replicating the same world of above vs below?
The Time of the No, the time of the Yes[2]
Compañeras, compañeros:
Having defined who we are, our past and present story, our place and the enemy that we face, as laid out in the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle, what is left pending is to further define why we fight.
We defined the “no,” we still haven’t fully delineated the “yes”.
This isn’t the only thing, as we also need more answers to the “how,” “when,” “with whom”.
All of you know that it is not our intention to build a great big organization with a central governing body, a centralized command, or a boss, be it individual or a particular group.
Our analysis of the functioning, strengths, and weaknesses of the dominant system has led us to believe and to emphasize that unified action is possible if we respect what we call the “modos” [manner, way of doing things] of each of us.
And these things we call “modos” are nothing but the knowledges that each of us, individual or collective, have of our own geography and calendar. That is, of our pains and our struggles.
We are convinced that any attempt at homogeneity is no more than a fascist effort at domination, regardless of whether it is hidden in revolutionary, esoteric, religious, or any other language.
When one speaks of “unity” they elide the fact that such “unity” occurs under the leadership of someone or something, be it individual or collective.
On the false altar of “unity,” not only are differences sacrificed, but the survival of all of the small worlds under the tyranny and injustice they suffer is obscured.
In our history, this lesson is repeated time and again. And every time the world turns, our place is always that of the oppressed, the disdained, the exploited, the dispossessed.
What we call the “four wheels of capitalism”: exploitation, displacement, repression, and disdain, have been repeated throughout our history, with different names up above, but we are always the same ones below.
But the current system has gotten to a state of extreme madness. Its predatory ambition, its absolute disrespect for life, its delight in death and destruction, and its effort to impose apartheid on all of those who are different, that is, all of those below, is taking humanity to the point of disappearance as a form of life on the planet.
We could, as someone might advise, wait patiently for those above to destroy themselves, without acknowledging that their insane arrogance and pride will destroy everything.
In their drive to be higher and higher above, they dynamite the floors below, the foundations. The building—the world—will ultimately collapse and there won’t be anyone to hold responsible.
We think that yes, something is wrong, very wrong. But that if in order to save humanity and the badly damaged house it inhabits someone has to go, then it should be, it must be, those above.
And we aren’t referring here to banishing those above. We’re talking about destroying the social relations that make it possible for someone to be above at the cost of someone else being below.
The Zapatistas know that this great line we have drawn across the world geography is not a conventional understanding. We know that this model of “above” and “below” bothers, irritates, and disturbs some. This is not the only thing that irritates them, we know, but for now, we are referring specifically to this discomfort. We could be mistaken. Quite likely we are. The thought police and knowledge inspectors will surely appear in order to judge, condemn, and execute us… hopefully only in their flamboyant writing and not hiding their vocation as executioners behind that of judges.
But this is how the Zapatistas see the world and its modos:
There is machismo, patriarchy, misogyny, or whatever one may call it, but it’s one thing to be a woman above and something completely different to be one below.
There is homophobia, yes, but it’s one thing to be a homosexual above and something very different to be one below.
There is disdain for those who are different, yes, but it’s one thing to be different above and quite another to be so below.
There is a left that is an alternative to the right, but it is one thing is to be on the left above and it is something completely different (we would say opposite) to be on the left below.
Place your own identities within the parameters we are laying out and you will see what we are saying.
The most deceitful identity, fashionable every time the modern state goes into crisis, is that of “citizenship.”
The “citizen” above and the “citizen” below have nothing in common; they are opposite and contradictory.
Differences are chased, cornered, ignored, disdained, repressed, displaced, and exploited, yes.
But we see a greater difference that crosses all of these differences: that of above and below, the haves and the have-nots.And we see that there is something fundamental to this great difference: the above is above on the backs of those below; the “haves” have because they dispossess those who don’t.
We think that being above or below determines our gaze, our words, what we hear, our steps, our pains, and our struggles.
Perhaps there will be another opportunity to explain more of our thinking on this. For now we will just say that the gazes, words, ears, and steps of those above tend to conserve this division. This does not, of course, imply immobility. Conservatism seems to be very far from a system that discovers more and better forms of imposing the four wounds that the world below suffers. But this “modernization” or “progress” has no other objective than to maintain above those who are above in the only way it is possible for them to be there, that is, on the backs of those below.
In our thinking, the gaze, words, ears, and steps of those below are determined by the line of questioning: Why this way? Why them? Why us?
In order to impose answers to such questions on us, or in order to avoid our asking them in the first place, gigantic cathedrals of ideas have been built, more or less well thought out, usually so grotesque that not only is it amazing that someone has developed them and someone believes them, but also that they have also constructed universities and centers for research and analysis based on them.
But there is always a party pooper who ruins the festivities at the end of history.
And that stick-in-the-mud responds to these questions with another: “could it be another way?”
This question could be the one that sparks rebellion and its broader acceptance. And this could be because there is a “no” that has birthed it: it doesn’t have to be this way.
Forgive us if this confusing detour has irritated you. Chalk it up to our modo, our ways and customs.
What we want to say, compañeras, compañeros, compañeroas, is that what convoked us all in the Sixth was this rebellious, heretic, rude, irreverent, bothersome, uncomfortable “no.”
We have gotten to this point because our realities, histories, and rebellions have brought us to this “it doesn’t have to be this way.”This and also because, intuitively or by design, we have answered “yes” to the question, “could it be another way?”
We still need to respond to the questions we encounter after that “yes.”
What is that other way, that other world, that other society that we imagine, that we want, that we need?
What do we have to do?
With whom?
If we don’t know the answers to those questions we have to look for them. And if we have them, we have to make them known among ourselves.
For our part, we have seen, listened to, and learned from everyone.
We saw who came around only to take political advantage of the Other Campaign, who jumped from one mobilization to another, seduced by the masses, and thus revealing their incapacity to generate anything themselves. One day they are anti-electoral, another day they hang their flags in whichever mobilization is in style; one day they are teachers, the next students; one day they are indigenists, the next they are allied with landowners and paramilitaries. They clamor for the avenging fire of the masses, and disappear when the antiriot tanks arrive with water cannons.
We will not walk again with them.
We saw who appears when there are stages, dialogues, good press, and attention, and who disappears when it is time for the work that is silent but necessary, as the majority of those who are hearing or reading this letter know. All this time our gaze and our ear were not directed toward those on the stage, but rather toward those who built it, who made the food, swept the floors, tended to things, drove, flyered, stuck it out, as they say. We also saw and heard those who climbed over everyone else.
We will not walk again with them.
We saw who the professionals of the assemblies are, with their techniques and tactics for driving meetings into the ground so that only they, and their followers, are left to approve their own proposals. They distribute defeat wherever they appear, facilitating roundtables, sidelining the “yuppie” and “petit-bourgeoisie” who don’t understand that at stake in the day’s agenda is the future of world revolution. Those who think poorly of any movement that doesn’t end in an assembly that they themselves run.
We will not walk again with them.
We saw those who present themselves as struggling for the freedom of the political prisoners during events and campaigns, but who insisted that we abandon the prisoners of Atenco and continue the journey of the Other Campaign because they had their strategy ready and their events programmed.
We will not walk again with them…
Opening ourselves to those throughout the world who have pain will not lessen our own. The path will be even more treacherous.We will battle.
We will resist.
We will struggle.
We may die.
But one, ten, a hundred, a thousand times, we will always win always.
For the Revolutionary Indigenous Clandestine Committee—General Command of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation
The Sixth-EZLN
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Chiapas, Mexico, Planet Earth.
This has been excerpt of Palestine 1492: A Report Back, by Linda Quiquivix
Footnotes
[1] William Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2009)
[2] EZLN. Them and Us, Part V. – The Sixth (January 2013)