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Art for Chiapas
By Huey Freeman
Dec. 9 (AGR)— ¡Ya Basta! (Enough is Enough!) That phrase
was a battle cry for the thousands of Zapatistas, an indigenous people’s
army, living in Chiapas, the southernmost Mexican state, who rose up
against poverty, death, and neoliberalism in the form of the North American
Free Trade Agreements. This year marks the tenth anniversary of that
initial uprising that is recognized as one of the origins of the modern
anti-globalization movement. Despite many radical changes to the lives
of the people of Chiapas that have come out of the Zapatista movement,
much remains the same. Chiapas is still the most impoverished and exploited
state in Mexico.
This Saturday, December 13th, the Asheville Community Resource Center
will be hosting a benefit art auction that is intended to help local
activist group, Education in Action (EIA) raise funds in order to travel
to Chiapas later this month. These people are planning on bringing much
needed medical and school supplies and also dozens of donated bicycles
to this depressed region of Mexico. They are also going to Chiapas in
order to help the people of that region build autonomous indigenous
schools. EIA makes a point of stressing that this trip is one of solidarity
and not some kind of charity event.
“Despite the good meanings behind it, charity still has a very
colonial mind set. Charity organizations tend to go into a place and
tell the targeted group, ‘This is how we are going to help you,
we know what is best for you, listen to us.’ Whereas solidarity
distinctly means working together in order to achieve a collective goal.
Basically it is a kind of symbiotic relationship,” says EIA activist
Seqouia Mcdowell.
When asked about the need for autonomous community schools in Chiapas;
Coqui Kapok, also of EIA, states: “The indigenous people are constantly
being slighted by the Mexican government, they have suffered under 500
years of oppression. These people don’t have anything that will
actually help them. Thus it is a necessity for them to organize community-run
schools that will be able to teach them indigenous cultures and values
without any sort outside influences.”
EIA will hook up with a group from Madison Wisconsin and caravan down
to the birthday party for the tenth anniversary of the Zapatista uprising.
While down there they will meet up with a contingent from Seattle and
begin to distribute bicycles and lend their labor to autonomous projects.
The auction will feature locally produced art with a bicycle/ Zapatista
theme and all money will go directly to EIA’s trip to Mexico and
all the supplies they are bringing down with them. Hand rolled tamales
will be served along with other “yummy refreshments.” Along
with great food and art, this is also slated to be a great show. Ghost
Mice, a punk band from Indiana, which features a violinist, will be
playing the event with Spoonboy and “special guests.” The
auction starts at 7pm sharp.
“We chose to have an art show because art has always been an integral
part in resistance movements. And in particular it has played an important
role in the lives of the indigenous people in Chiapas,” said EIA
co-founder Najwa Ingatius.
For More Info on the trip visit: najwa.alt-z.org/chiapas
Dismantling the prison industrial complex
one package at a time
By Finn
Dec. 9 (AGR) -- Today in the United States of America there
are over 2 million individuals incarcerated within the prison system.
Because of the nature of the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC), most of
those individuals are from lower class backgrounds or are people of
color, continuing the racist, classist system that many activists work
daily to dismantle. One of the many organizations working to end the
PIC happens to be in your very own town.
The Prison Book Program of Asheville provides books and literature to
prisoners throughout the South East in order to help facilitate their
education and rehabilitation within the prison system. The program is
some inmates’ only contact with other individuals and information
outside of their prison walls. This serves as a small reminder to those
locked up that they are not forgotten.
The Prison Book Program receives hundreds of letters from inmates in
the South East alone. About four core people take on the task of making
packages and writing letters to these prisoners and fighting the PIC
in the most direct way they know how.
“[The reason I go to Prison Books every week to make packages is]
because it is a very personal form of activism. I know that if I make
ten packages, ten people are going to get them and be affected on a
personal level. And they are in a position where they are the most marginalized,
the most forgotten about, the least cared about aspects of society,”
said Potato, one of the consistent package-makers in the Prison Book
Program.
“People [outside of the prisons] believe that those incarcerated
are criminals and deserve to be locked up without looking at the reality
of the situation. The reality of the situation is that what has become
of the whole Prison Industrial Complex is that it makes a lot of money
warehousing impoverished and marginalized aspects of our society like
poor people and people of color...the vast majority of those in prison
are in for non-violent drug offences, which is another sign of how overtly
classist the prisons are by criminalizing certain drug offences…
We don’t have million dollar cokeheads in there. You’ve got
single mothers hooked on heroin,” Potato continued.
The Prison Book Program is in need of money donations to pay for postage
and materials like packing tape and paper bags. Dictionaries, Spanish/English
dictionaries, radical history books, law books, and GED books are always
welcomed donations, as they are in high demand from inmates and are
always lacking in the Prison Books’ library.
The Prison Book Program meets once a week on Sundays at 6 pm in the
Asheville Community Resource Center (ACRC) located at 63 N. Lexington.
Because of the huge influx of letters they receive each month Prison
Books can always use as much help as possible making packages. Once
someone learns how to make a package on one of the Sunday meetings they
can come in to work any time the ACRC’s reading room is open (Wed-Sun
12-7).
For further information or to ask questions please call Potato at 281-0887.
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