Zapatista Army for National Liberation (EZLN)
462 pages, paperback
Publication date: January 1, 2024
We have already been through the horrors of a Third World War. Today we are in the Fourth, and if we are to stop this war, we need to know what we are fighting, or rather, what is fighting us.
To better understand this moment, we turn to theory from below from those who know about war: our Maya elders, the Zapatista Army for National Liberation, the EZLN.
The Maya rebel communities in Chiapas have been not only living under conditions of war for more than 500 years, they have also been theorizing about WWIV since it began with the fall of the Soviet Union and the so-called “triumph” of capital.
The seven communiques in this book are only a small number of the many writings the EZLN offers us on war and struggle, spanning from 1997 when they introduced their theorizations on WWIV, to 2023 in the context of the genocides before us in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, and the intensified violences across many more geographies: Chiapas, Haiti, Rojava, Syria, Artsakh, Iran… a geography and calendar of war as unbearable as it is endless.
As this exceptional moment unmasks the fallacy of exceptionalism, we are certain of one thing: the world History we have been told is a lie, and we will not allow any more lies.
What we are witnessing is reality, “the harshest of all judges,” as the Zapatistas put it. It is reality that every day testifies to the fact that we are already in a world war, a global war, a truly total war where the enemy is life, where the enemy is all who stand in the way of capital, where the enemy is us for simply being us.
7 Loose Pieces of the Global Jigsaw Puzzle (1997)
What Are the Fundamental Characteristics of the Fourth World War? (1999)
Notes on Wars (2011)
A Declaration… for Life (2021)
Of Sowings and Reapings (2023)
The (Other) Rule of the Excluded Third (2023)
The Common and Non-Property (2023)
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Ya hemos pasado por los horrores de una Tercera Guerra Mundial. Hoy estamos en la Cuarta, y si queremos detener esta guerra, necesitamos saber contra qué estamos luchando, o mejor dicho, qué es lo que nos está matando.
Para comprender mejor este momento, recurramos a la teoría desde abajo de quienes saben de la guerra: nuestros mayores mayas del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, el EZLN.
Las comunidades rebeldes mayas en Chiapas no sólo han estado viviendo en condiciones de guerra durante más de 500 años, sino que también han estado teorizando sobre la IV Guerra Mundial desde que comenzó con la caída de la Unión Soviética y el llamado “triunfo” del capital.
Los siete comunicados de este libro son sólo una pequeña cantidad de los muchos escritos que el EZLN nos ofrece sobre la guerra y la lucha, abarcando desde 1997 cuando introdujeron sus teorizaciones sobre la IV Guerra Mundial, hasta 2023 en el contexto de los genocidios que tenemos ante nosotros en Palestina, Congo, Sudán y la intensificación de la violencia en muchas más geografías: Chiapas, Haití, Rojava, Siria, Artsaj, Irán… una geografía y un calendario de guerras tan insoportables como interminables.
Mientras este momento excepcional desenmascara la falacia del excepcionalismo, estamos segures de una cosa: la Historia mundial que nos han contado es una mentira, y no permitiremos más mentiras.
Lo que estamos presenciando es la realidad, “el juez más severo,” como dicen los, las, y loas zapatistas. Es una realidad que cada día atestigua el hecho de que ya estamos en una guerra mundial, una guerra global, una guerra verdaderamente total donde el enemigo es la vida, donde el enemigo son todos los que se interponen en el camino del capital, donde el enemigo es nosotros, nosotras, nosotroas por simplemente ser nosotros, nosotras, nosotroas.
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Editors’ Introduction
When was the Third World War, you ask?
We are taught there was the First World War, then the Second, followed by the Cold War. Today, as calendar shifts from 2023 to 2024, we’re being told a Third World War is about to explode.
But this is History according to the view from above. If we listen to the below, we know the Cold War was cold only for those geographies called NATO and the USSR; the Cold War was hot for Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, always the Caribbean.
In other words, we have already been through the horrors of a Third World War. We are already in the Fourth, and if we are to stop this war, we need to know what we are fighting, or rather, what is fighting us. To better understand this moment, we turn to theory from below from those who know about war.
The seven communiques in this book are only a small number of the many writings the Zapatista Army for National Liberation (EZLN) offers us on war and struggle, spanning from 1997 when they introduced their theorizations on the Fourth World War, to 2023 in the context of the genocides before us in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, and the intensified violences across many more geographies, Chiapas, Haiti, Rojava, Syria, Artsakh, Iran… A list as endless as it is unbearable.
Reality, the harshest of all judges, testifies to the fact that we are already in war, a global war, a truly total war where the enemy is life, where the enemy is all who stand in the way of capital, where the enemy is us.
In this exceptional moment that has unmasked the fallacy of exceptionalism, we are certain of one thing: the world History we have been told is a lie, and we will not allow any more lies.
In the first two communiques in this book, 7 Loose Pieces of the Global Jigsaw Puzzle (1997) and What Are the Main Characteristics of the Fourth World War? (1999), we are introduced to the calendar of WWIV which begins with the end of the USSR and what History assumes is capitalism’s triumph as a way to organize life over other social projects. Today, the Nation-States are not fighting against capitalism or insisting on a different way; for them, capitalism is no longer a debate. Politicians are capital’s administrators who, rather than serving the people, serve themselves by managing the flow of global capital: neoliberalism, a “new religion” in this Fourth World War. Thus, the geography of this war is not between East vs West or North vs South; the Fourth World War is a war between capital vs life.
More than two decades later, in The (Other) Rule of the Excluded Third (2023), the Zapatistas point out a new religion has formed since their earlier writings: the religion of social media and its influencers, its “neo-prophets.” As the capitalist hydra grows new heads and we study and observe these shapeshifts, we recognize that what remains constant to it is war. Always war. In such a context, it is difficult to be optimistic, yet the Zapatistas show in this communique that foreseeing failure can be a method for seeking contradictions, a method for us, the seekers, those “With everything against them, they cling to the remotest hope.”
And the question, always the question as we fight in this war, in our struggle for life: How do we not become the monsters we fight? How can we be soldiers fighting for a world that doesn’t need soldiers anymore? How do we eliminate the conditions that necessitate war? “Is it possible to bring Ethics to war?” is the question that confronts us in Notes on Wars (2011). The answer is: we must.
In Of Sowings and Reapings (2009-2023) we are presented with words and concepts we already feel in our bones: “The subterranean rivers that run through the world are able to change their geography, but they sing the same song. And the river we now listen to sings of war and grief. Not far from here, in a place called Gaza, in Palestine, in the Middle East, right next to us…”
If Gaza is next to Chiapas, then what is the geography of the Fourth World War? In A Declaration… for Life (2021) we learn that what unites the geography of the below are the bridges of dignity.
In this struggle for life against capital, in the context of mass extinction, in our planetary emergency, in this our generational task, The Common and Non-Property (2023) proposes a way forward, a new way of relating with land and with life, a global common against this global war, with “no recipes or manuals, because what works for one may not work for another,” a proposal very Zapatista.
In this war, we are in the dark, but we are in the dark together. May we find each other in the dark. May we share stories, knowledges, and struggles in the dark. May we ask questions in the dark. May we walk in the dark. May we be bridges of dignity in the dark. May we build this global common so that it’s not so dark.
Toward a world where many worlds fit,
Paliacate Press
Occupied Chumash and Tongva Lands
Planeta Tierra
January 1, 2024
462 pages, paperback
Publication date: January 1, 2024