"We belong to the Land and Not the Reverse"

As part of our YAGM retreat on silence and indigenous spirituality, we listened to an indigenous man named Ignacio, "Nacho," who explained the history of oppression that indigenous people have resisted for hundreds of years. 
Early in his talk, he told a story about one of the conquerors who tortured an indigenous leader and demanded to know, "Where is the treasure?" The indigenous leader responded, "How sad that you do not have eyes to see? You have already killed it.  The treasure is in the knowledge, wisdom, discipline, and life of my people."
After the conquista, 10 % of the indigenous population remained.  Though marginalized, the knowledge, wisdom, discipline, and lives of many indigenous people still inform and form Mexican cultures. 
Nacho explained that the indigenous had a circular lunar calendar, with cycles marking the time of light and the other half marking the time of dark.  In contrast to Western culture's views, the time of darkness is not seen as negative, but as a time of regeneration.  When the Spaniards came, many indigenous interpreted it as a change from the time of dark to the time of light and hoped for positive transformation, but what followed was horrible destruction and loss of culture and life. 
Since the conquista, indigenous have struggled for rights to land.  Many indigenous worked havesting sugar cane and coffee, living basically as slaves in extreme poverty.  He explained how debts were not forgiven when a family member died, and so for 300 years, this injustice grew, and poverty worsened. 
When Mexico gained independence on September 15, 1810, the Legislation of Land was not dealt with, and indigenous were oppressed for 100 more years.  In 1910, another social movement began to fix this land conflict.  Emiliano Zapata called out, "It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!" There began the Zapatista Movement, whose theme was, "For Everyone, Everything! For us, Nothing!"  Although many indigenous didn't believe in violence, because "we reap what we sow," they recognized that sometimes it is necessary.  Guns force others to listen.  A bloody revolution began in 1910 and ended in one sense in 1919.  In 1911, Emiliano Zapata drafted the "Plan de Ayala," which said, "This land will return to those who work it with their hands."  Yet the revolution for land in Mexico still continues today.  "The government is not listening," Nacho said. 
In 1917, Article 27 of the Mexican constitution was created and said, "Communal Land, or Ejido Land is the property of the people who work it with their hands."  From 1917 to 1919, after the assasination of Emiliano Zapata, agrarian reform began, but only in the state of Morelos (in Cuernavaca, Morelos, one of the street names is Plan de Ayala).
Nacho explained how many indigenous people see land very differently than people from Western cultures.  The land we are on connects us to the present.  The land is the time and space we inhabit in the here and now.  For this reason, the land is not something we can own; we can't carry the land with us.  Many indigenous are against the definition of private property, and see it as an "invention of oppresion." Private property prevents access, even to basic needs of life, like water.  "In privatizing everything," he explained, "we are thinking more with our wallets than with our hearts." "We belong to the land and not the reverse," he explained. 
In the 1990s, President Carlos Salinas changed Article 27 without asking permission from the indigenous.  Communal Ejido Indigenous Lands could be sold for profit.   So, many multinational companies showed up.  NAFTA was about to go into effect.  Nacho explained that NAFTA works in theory, but not in practice. In 1994, the Zapatista Army for National Liberation protested NAFTA.  With NAFTA, Mexico was considered "first world." But Mexico can't compete with the U.S. because of differences in agricultural machinery, agricultural subsidies, access to education, and healthcare.  In that time, 33% of the Mexican indigenous were living in extreme poverty, on one dollar a day, eating salt and tortillas, especially in the states of Guerrero, Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Hidalgo. 
"The Zapatista movement is about dignity," Nacho explained, since so many indigenous have lived through so much suffering and indignity.  Zapatista movement is about indigenous rights to land, natural resources, and autonomy. 
"Many indigenous have much mistrust of multinational companies because they have arrived and mined, and taken advantage of us," he said.  He said its frustrating that many students come to "study the indigenous," and they leave after a time, and advance in their professions, but "what about the indigenous people?" The studies done by students may educate others, but do not have a direct and immediate impact on the indigenous communities.  He said its frustrating to feel that his culture is valued in museum pieces and exhibits, but that human beings who form his culture are not valued.  He said, "As indigenous, we want to be included in a nation-project.  We want to be included and valued because all of us are children of the Land."  This makes me think of the indigenous perspective that God lives in the earth.  In Christian traditions, the phrase, "We are all children of God," is so common. If we see from the eyes of the indigenous, being children of God means being children of the earth, and ALL of us belong to the earth, not the reverse.