Zapatistas Meet the Kurdish Women's Movement in Germany
*Originally published in Medya News
Kurdish women and women from the Zapatista movement declare that they are soul sisters in their struggle for freedom.
Frankfurt hosted a unique women’s meeting on Saturday, a meeting where women from lands far apart and speaking different languages all came together to brain-storm about ways to fight against capitalism and patriarchy.
A party of Zapatistas were in Frankfurt on 22 September after one leg of a long journey, and they organised a number of meetings with Kurdish institutions there.
A delegation consisting of six Kurdish women activists from the Association of Women from Kurdistan in Germany (YJK-E), the Amara Women’s Assembly and Women Defend Rojava met on Saturday with the delegation of the Zapatista movement.
During the meeting, ANF reported, Kurdish women informed the Zapatistas about the Kurdish women’s movement and its ideology, democratic confederalism and the national struggle of the Kurds.
The delegation of Zapatistas also informed the Kurdish women about their administration systems.
In a very lively atmosphere of debate, women from the different cultures shared their experiences of struggle against the colonialist practices they have been suffering from, and exchanged messages of international solidarity.
With their declaration titled “A Mountain in the Open Sea” published on 5 October last year, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN-CCIG) announced that they would send delegations of the Zapatista movement to five continents by travelling overseas, starting with Madrid on 13 August 2021.
“The Zapatistas want to give this message to the colonialist states, which built the empire of global occupation 500 years ago on the American continent: You brought death and salughter to our lands 500 years ago; we, 500 years later, are coming to enlighten you,” EZLN-CCIG said in their statement.
13 August, to be noted, is a historic day of mourning, because it represents the day when the Spanish Conquistadores broke the resistance of the Méxica (foreign name: Aztecs) and occupied the last resisting capital of the Triple Alliance, Tenochtitlan. This broke the state resistance to the conquest. But the decentralised societies, especially those of the Maya peoples, are still in an unbroken continuity of resistance today.
As leading representatives of this struggle, the Zapatistas first appeared in the impoverished province of Chiapas on 1 January 1994, when they briefly liberated the provincial capital of San Cristobal de las Casas, destroyed property documents and issued a statement to the world. The movement has triggered a storm of solidarity worldwide ever since.