Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Here we re-tell the creation myth of Ch’ujtiat from the Ch’ol People. Stories director Gabriela Badillo’s 68 Voices, 68 Hearts, a series of one-minute animations that preserve indigenous Mexican stories with narration provided by native speakers.
B. Traven, German underground author, anarchist and writer of the Treasure of Sierra Madre, purposely obscured his origins to evade consequences from his revolutionary past in Germany and to stoke his literary mystery that hinged upon his words: “An author should have no other biography than his books.”
The Zapatista community of San Marcos Avilés, composed of Tzeltal indigenous people, calls for international solidarity in their struggle for autonomy and natural resource protection from oppressive and violent forces of Mexico’s entrenched neoliberal economy.
REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) purports to combat global warming by saving rainforests, but without reducing greenhouse gas emissions, nor putting the capitalist system and its excesses—the real causes of environmental disaster—on the table.
“We see with the corn and beans we nourish ourselves; with oil palms and pine nuts they plan to produce biofuels to feed the cars and trucks. Do cars have more right to the food of Mother Earth than we do?”
“In southern Mexico many multinationals have significant interests because there are so many natural resources. Developers want to use those lands for eco-tourism, they want to exploit the natural resources contained in the forests, etc. The pretext is always the ‘war on drugs’ or ‘security’, but there is more behind the justifications and Chiapas is just one example.”