Solidarity Message from Subcomandante Marcos

To the all citizens of the world,

Fellows, Sisters, Women, Men, Homeless People, Poor People,

They asked us how many people the Zapatas are and we told them there are hundreds of thousands out there who are fighting for their rights and freedoms. Now today, we hear that on the Anatolian lands, the land of Turks, Kurds, Circassians, Armenians, the Lazs, and many more than i can count, thousands of masked people who wants to live in honor are hailing for freedom. Like Kurdish fellows who were in an honorable fight. We knew that we were not alone, there were millions of us out there and we weren’t alone since we have started fighting. Today, we see that we are increasing. We hear that people in Turkey shout out “Ya Basta!” and they are in a riot to defend their honor against to the oppressive ruling of Turkish government. The Great Istanbul, the capital of masters throughout history, is now the capital of riot, and it has become the voice of oppressed ones. We see that on the streets of the great Istanbul are now the capital of women, children, men, homosexuals, Kurds, Armenians, Christians and Muslims. The ones who have been humiliated, oppressed, ignored for decades by their government are now saying “We Are Here.” We are thrilled!

We have never wanted a new governance, a new government or a new prime minister. We just asked for respect. We wanted the goverment to respect our requests of freedom, democracy and justice. People of Turkey are demanding for these and resisting for days: Now starting from the ingoing goverment, and all the governments who are going to be in charge, we want you to respect our requests of freedom, democracy and justice! And if you don’t do that, we, who are the owners of rights and freedoms, will stand against you, we’ll fight on the streets until you learn to respect. We don’t want too much, we just want you to respect our rights. Because we know how we want to live, we know well how we want to govern and be governed. We want to govern ourself and decide about ourself.

And we are greeting people of Turkey who are fighting for an honorable life from here, and we want to tell that the fire of riot has warmed Chiapas. Solidarity with the ones who saved the history from past and future and moved to present.

Solidarity to the free people of Taksim,
Solidarity to the EZLN,

United we stand,

Resist!