Probably one of the most powerful statements I've ever read. Letter from the Landless Mothers
We speak to the sons and daughters of the land from all nations. To those who were not invited to the banquet. To those who have been waiting in the queue of history for centuries. We will not be spectators at a film waiting for the light to go out. It's time to believe in the possibility of defeating sorrow.
We are rising up with the mothers who are losing their sons and daughters in wars, in urban massacres, from the barrel of a rifle, in concentration camps, in acts of femicide and genocide, in domestic violence, in political persecutions, in armed sieges. We are rising up with the mothers who are losing their children because they don’t have milk, bread, land, or access to the knowledge accumulated by humanity. We are rising up with the mothers who are wandering with their sons and daughters, seeking a better world, We are rising up to call for social justice and dignity.
We raise our hands, our hoes, our scythes, and our consciences to call on all working women of the world to unite against those who exploit the land, life, the strength of our work and of our body.We are directing ourselves to those who are said to be lords of the world. We don't want and we aren't asking for your permission to cut fences and to sow flowers and dreams. We will not hesitate to speak to you. We are struggling for land, for water, in defense of seeds and of biodiversity for the right to decide about our lives and our food, for the right to work, for our future and for solidarity among peoples.
"Development and modernity" advance over the world and open wounds. In your name, laws are passed that put humanity at risk. Against the green desert and despair we break the silence and we denounce the dust that is thrown over dreams and the prison of flowers. Your modernity is darkness and hunger and for this reason, is not in our interest. Don't you dare move ahead one step with your project of death!
The criminal manipulation of biogenetics, monoculture, agro-fuels, and agribusiness is an attempt to kill food sovereignty and the possibility of a ecologically correct and socially just world. We will not allow humanity to be destroyed. You should know that we will not accept that you kill our children through violence or for lack of food.On this Mother's Day we reaffirm our determination to transform the countryside into a space for hope, happiness, and above all, for struggle. In our project, everyone has the right to a dignified life, a decent standard of living, and the sweet smell of flowers. We want to transform the world so that it may be more just and more egalitarian, and that all who live in it may be respected.
We will continue sowing revolutionary unrest on behalf of agrarian reform, social justice, and sovereignty of food and peoples. This is our mission and thus it must be for all peasant mothers persecuted by the violence of agribusiness and water-business.
What's left for the mothers of the world is to organize and struggle. We will struggle tirelessly against the neoliberal system that transforms food, water, land, people’s knowledge, and the bodies of women into commodities.
It's time to demand justice and punishment for those responsible for exploitation, violence, genocide, and massacres.
It's time to open up new passages, new men and new women.
It's time to set our sights on the new horizon.
We are standing up, spending night and day sculpting the fertility and the rebellion that are being born in the womb of mother earth.
Long live Mother Earth! Long live the mothers of the earth!
May 2007
MST – Agrarian Reform: for Social Justice and Peoples’ Sovereignty
The MST makes me so happy. Background here, here, and here,
