Written by: Justin Wedes (Zuccotti)
I found myself on the eve of 2014 in San Cristobal de las Casas in the southernmost Chiapas state of Mexico, just above the border with Guatemala. The colonial city’s name itself betrays a kind of solidarity with the native peoples of this land: Bartolomé de las Casas was Christopher Columbus’s lesser-known companion, the first Bishop of Chiapas, and a fierce defender of indigenous peoples against enslavement and killing by the colonizers. When indigenous activists seized this city on January 1st, 1994 - the day the NAFTA treaty went into effect – they found the town cheering on their arrival including the Bishop Samuel Ruiz, a modern-day de las Casas.
The Tzeltal and Tzotzil peoples call this place Jovel, the place in the clouds.
da qui
I found myself on the eve of 2014 in San Cristobal de las Casas in the southernmost Chiapas state of Mexico, just above the border with Guatemala. The colonial city’s name itself betrays a kind of solidarity with the native peoples of this land: Bartolomé de las Casas was Christopher Columbus’s lesser-known companion, the first Bishop of Chiapas, and a fierce defender of indigenous peoples against enslavement and killing by the colonizers. When indigenous activists seized this city on January 1st, 1994 - the day the NAFTA treaty went into effect – they found the town cheering on their arrival including the Bishop Samuel Ruiz, a modern-day de las Casas.
The Tzeltal and Tzotzil peoples call this place Jovel, the place in the clouds.
da qui
