Archives – Page 19 – Upside Down World

Zapatista Communities: “Resistance and Rebellion Are Our Weapons”

August 12, 2015 Zapatistas 0

“We discovered that resistance is not only resisting one’s enemy, refusing its crumbs or leftovers. Resistance also means resisting the enemy’s threats and provocations…When we resist as a collective, it is done with discipline, that is, through agreement. We make an agreement regarding how we are going to deal with different types of problems…We have been developing this resistance for 20 years. At the beginning it was difficult…We began to see that resistance and rebellion gave our organization security and sustenance…We discovered that with resistance and rebellion we could govern ourselves and with resistance and rebellion we could develop our own initiatives…”

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Indigenous Community Wins Land Rights Victory in Guatemala After 200 Years of Struggle

August 6, 2015 Jeff Abbott 0

Success is rare among indigenous peoples’ struggles for land rights in Guatemala. But the nearly 300 Poqomchi’ Maya families that make up the Primavera communities in the department of Alta Verapaz have just won a significant victory.

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Peaceful Resistance Beats Back Large Scale Mining Project in Guatemala

August 6, 2015 Jeff Abbott 0

On July 15, a judge provided the non-violent resistance of La Puya one of their biggest victories in the 3 years of their struggle. Judge Angelica Noemi Tellez Hernandez ordered the suspension of all construction at the Progreso VII El Tambor, mining site owned by the United States mining firm Kappes, Cassidy, & Associates.

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Mexico: A Lesson in Defiance Amid the Carnage

August 5, 2015 Ramor Ryan 0

It is difficult to extract anything positive from the carnage that is the recent history of the Mexican border state of Chihuahua and its city Juárez, but “La Lucha: The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights in Mexico” attempts to do just that. It does so by focusing on the bravery and resilience of a few determined Mexican women — some living, some dead — who refused, in the words of the eponymous Lucha Castro, “to cooperate further with a patriarchal and unjust system.”

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“Extractivism creates a society without subjects”: Raúl Zibechi on Latin American Social Movements

July 30, 2015 Vivi Benito 0

How have power relations within social movements changed since the implementation of government social policies? Why does the extractivist model create a society without subjects, or social actors? In this interview, Raúl Zibechi analyzes the social and economic situation and how it relates to social movements.

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“A Mirror of State Violence”: Ayotzinapa Sees Itself in Brazil’s Favelas and Indigenous Territories

July 27, 2015 Armando Carmona 0

The families of the 43 Ayotzinapa students travelled as the Caravana 43 to multiple cities in the United States, Canada, several countries in Europe, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil to challenge the lies often reproduced about the case and to build solidarity with social movements in their own locale.

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Political Economy from the Perspective of the Zapatista Communities

July 27, 2015 Zapatistas 0

“Before the Zapatista Army for National Liberation was created, we indigenous from Chiapas didn’t exist for the capitalist system; we weren’t people to it; we weren’t human. We didn’t even exist as trash for it. And we imagine that’s how it was for the other indigenous brothers and sisters in the rest of our country. And that’s how we imagine it is in any country where indigenous people exist.” – Subcomandante Moises

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Rebuilding Community in Medellin, Colombia’s Violent Slums: The Hillside Screams, Resists, and Builds

July 23, 2015 Raúl Zibechi 0

A huge amphitheater bordered by mountains. Below, in the depths of the valley crossed by the Medellin River, buildings signal the city center, highways full of cars, and as your gaze ascends the slopes, thousands of huddled houses hanging from cliffs, ravines, and gorges. Waves of migrants have tamed the hillsides, making them into a kind of vertical city.

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Izidora Land Occupation in Protest: 30,000 Threatened With Eviction in Brazil

July 23, 2015 Bárbara Ferreira for Carta Capital; Translated by Holly Holmes 0

The refusal of City Hall and a developer to negotiate with Izidro residents could cause a mega-eviction and the destruction of hundreds of houses in an area that is seven times larger than the Pinheirinho occupation, from which residents were violently evicted and massacred in 2012.

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The Pacification of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Military Intervention in Schools

July 22, 2015 Diego Ferrari 0

The city of Rio de Janeiro’s public safety policy figures prominently among the Brazilian government’s public agenda. It involves flooding specific areas with military police to the point of occupying state schools.

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