WE’RE IN THE MOUNTAINS of Southeast Mexico in
the Lacandon Jungle of Chiapas, and we want to use
this medium, with the help of the National Commission
for Democracy in Mexico, to send a greeting to the
“Free Media” Conference that is taking place in New
York, where there are brothers and sisters of the
independent communications media from the United
States and Canada.
At the Intercontinental Encuentro for Humanity and
against Neoliberalism we said: A global
decomposition is taking place –we call it the Fourth
World War - through neoliberalism, the global
economic process to eliminate that multitude of
people who are not useful to Power, the groups called
“minorities” in the mathematics of power, but who
happen to be the majority population in the world. We
find ourselves in a world system of globalization willing
to sacrifice millions of human beigns.
The giant communication media –the great monsters
of the television industry, the communication satellites,
magazines and newspapers– seem determined to
present a virtual world, created in the image of what
the globalization process requires.
In this sense, the world of contemporay news is a
world that exists for the VIP’s -the very important
people, the major movie stars and big politicians.
Their everyday lives are what is important: if they get
married, if they divorce, if they eat, what clothes they
wear and what clothes they take off. But common
people only figure in the news for a moment– when
they kill someone, or when they die. For the
communication giants and the neoliberal powers, the
others, the excluded, only exist when they are dead, or
when they are in jail or court. This can’t go on. Sooner
or later this virtual world clashes with the real world.
And that is actually happening: this clash results in
rebellion and war throughout the entire world, or what
is left of the world to even have war.
We have a choice. We can have a cynical attitude in
the face of the media and say nothing can be done
about the dollar power that creates itself in images,
words, digital communication, and computer systems
that invade not just with an invasion of power but with a
way of seeing that world, of how they think the world
should look. We could say, Well, “that is the way it is,”
and do nothing. Or we can simply assume incredulity.
We can say that any communication by the media
monopolies is a total lie. We can ignore it and go
about our lives.
But there is a third option that is neither conformity, nor
skepticism, nor distrust. It’s the opption to construct a
different way: to show the world what is really
happening, to have a critical worldview, to become
interested in the truth of what happens to the people
who inhabit every corner of this world.
The work of independent media is to tell the history of
social struggle in the world. Here in Norrth America
–The United States, Canada, and Mexico-
independent media has, on ocassion, been able to
open spaces even within the mass media
monopolies, to force them to acknowledge news of
social movements.
The problem is not only to know what is occurring in
the world, but to understand it and derive lessons from
it, just as if we were studying, not of the past but of
what is happening at any given moment in whateever
part of the world. This is the way to learn who we are,
what is what we want, who we can be, and what we
can do or not do.
By not having to answer to the monster media
monopolies, the independent media has a life’s work,
a political project, and a purpose: to let the truth be
known. This is increasingly more important in the
globalization process. Truth becomes a knot of
resistance against the lie. Our only possibility is to
save the truth, to maintain it, and distribute it, little by
little, in the same way that the books were saved in
Fahrenheit 451; a group of people dedicated
themselves to memorize books, to save them from
being destroyed, so that the ideas would not be lost.
In the same way, independent media tries to save
history –today’s history- tries to save it and tries to
share it so it will not disappear. Moreover, it tries to
distribute it to other places, so that this history is not
limited to one country, to one region, to one city or
social group. It is neccesary not only for independent
voices to exchange information and to broaden the
channels, but to resist the monopolies’ spreading lies.
The truth that we build in our groups, our cities, our
regions, our countries, will reach full potential if we join
with other truths and realize that what is occurring in
other parts of the world also is part of human history.
In August 1996 we called for the creation of a network
of independent media, a network of information. We
mean a network to resist the power of the lie that sells
us this war that we call World War IV. We need this
network not only as a tool for our social movements
but for our lives: this is a project for life, for a humanity
that has a right to critical and truthful information.
We greet all of you, recognizing the work you have
done so that the struggle of indigenous people is
known, and the other struggles are known, so that the
great events of this world are seen in a critical form.
We hope your meeting is a success and that it results
in concrete plans for this network, these exchanges,
this mutual support that should exist between cultural
workers and independent media makers. We hope
that one day we can personally attend your meeting, or
perhaps that one day you can have your conference in
our territory, so we can listen to your words and you
can hear ours in person. For now, well, we take
advantage of the help of the National Commission for
Democracy in Mexico to use this video to send a
greeting. [This section in English] I don’t know if my
English is okay, but good luck and so long. Cut.