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Reaching net zero by 2050 ‘cheaper for UK than one fossil fuel crisis’

Climate change committee finds move to renewable energy would also bring health, economic and security benefits

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Wave 37 of ‘True Promise 4’ Heaviest Since Start of War

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced that the 37th wave of Operation “True Promise 4” was the most intense and heaviest since the start of the war, targeting zionist and US positions across the region with heavy warheads.

According to the IRGC, the operation included the use of the heavy Khorramshahr-4 missile in a multi-launch strike against US and zionist military infrastructure.

The statement said the wave targeted the Ha’ela Satellite Communication Center south of Tel Aviv for the second time since the beginning of the war on Iran, alongside military sites in Be’er Ya’akov, al-Quds, and Haifa.

The IRGC added that the same wave also struck several US targets in Erbil, in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, as well as facilities linked to the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, based in Manama, Bahrain. Iranian forces stressed that operations would continue with increasing intensity, declaring that throughout the ongoing war, they “will pursue nothing short of complete victory.”

Regional impacts and reported interceptions

The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Defense said its air defenses intercepted ballistic missiles and drones during the attacks. Separately, impacts were reported in Erbil amid the broader wave of strikes against US-linked positions in the region.

In central occupied Palestine, zionist media outlets reported that a direct hit to a military base near Tel Aviv, while footage circulating on social media showed dozens of bomblets descending toward urban centers.

Amid the 37th wave, which reportedly lasted for 3 hours, The Washington Post, citing an internal US State Department assessment, parts of the US embassy compound in Riyadh that were struck by a drone attack were described as “beyond repair”.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that satellite imagery company Planet Labs expanded restrictions on access to its images after photographs circulated online showing damage to US military bases in the region. The developments come as Iran continues its campaign of retaliatory strikes following the US-Israeli aggression on the Islamic Republic, with Tehran signaling that operations will persist until its strategic objectives are achieved.

Hezbollah targets zionist entity

The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon – Hezbollah launched a series of operations targeting zionist occupation forces and sites in response to the ongoing aggression on Lebanon on Wednesday.

Additionally, the Resistance announced three operations that its fighters executed on Tuesday, adding to 24 other operations conducted yesterday. Hezbollah fighters are also defending border towns from continuous zionist attempts to advance into Lebanese territory.

1- 10:00 Monday 09/03/2026: Targeting the Tziporit base east of the city of “Haifa”, which is 35 km from the Lebanese-Palestinian border, with a swarm of attack drones.
2- 18:30 yesterday, Monday 09/03/2026: Targeting the Tel HaShomer base (General Staff headquarters southeast of “Tel Aviv”), which is 120 km from the Lebanese-Palestinian border, with two attack drones.

3- 00:05: Targeting a gathering of “israeli” enemy army soldiers and vehicles at the newly established site in the town of Markaba with a rocket barrage.

4- 00:35: Targeting the Giva base for drone control east of the occupied city of “Safad”, with a qualitative rocket barrage.

5- 01:00: Targeting a gathering of “israeli” enemy army soldiers at the Malkiya site opposite the border town of Aitaroun with a rocket barrage.

6- 01:00: Targeting the newly established site on Jebel al-Bat in the border town of Aitaroun with a rocket barrage.

7- 01:15: Targeting a gathering of “israeli” enemy soldiers in the Al-Khanouq area in the village of Aitaroun with artillery shells.

8- 01:20: Targeting a gathering of enemy army forces on Kahil Heights at the eastern outskirts of the border town of Maroun al-Ras with a rocket barrage.

9- 01:30: Targeting the Yiftah barracks with a rocket barrage.

10- 01:40: Targeting an artillery position near the Al-Marj site opposite the border town of Markaba with a rocket barrage.

11- 02:30: Islamic Resistance fighters confronted an attempted advance by “israeli” enemy army forces at the southern outskirts of the city of Khiam in the vicinity of the detention center. The Resistance fighters achieved confirmed hits on two Merkava tanks, one of which was seen burning. During the enemy’s attempts to withdraw the two tanks, the fighters again targeted the evacuation forces with appropriate weapons, amidst fierce clashes with the advancing “israeli” force.

12- 02:45: In continuation of the heroic confrontation being waged by the Islamic Resistance fighters at this moment at the southern outskirts of the city of Khiam, the fighters lured the enemy forces into a tight ambush point while they were attempting to retrieve their dead from the battlefield. Upon reaching the kill point, the fighters targeted them with appropriate weapons, achieving a direct hit on a Merkava tank—the third in this ongoing engagement—and it was seen, like the previous ones, burning.

13- 02:15: Targeting the artillery position in the vicinity of the Al-Abbad site with a rocket barrage.

14- 02:30: After monitoring an “israeli” enemy army force attempting to infiltrate towards the border town of Houla, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted it at the Al-Abbad site and its vicinity with a rocket barrage.

15- 02:45: Targeting the newly established site on Tellet al-Hamames south of the city of Khiam with a rocket barrage.

16- 12:00: Targeting the Shamshon base (command equipment center and regional equipment unit) west of Lake “Tiberias” with a swarm of attack drones.

17- 15:00: Within the framework of the warning issued by the Islamic Resistance to a number of settlements in northern occupied Palestine, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted the “Misgav Am” settlement with a rocket barrage.

18- 15:00: Within the framework of the warning issued by the Islamic Resistance to a number of settlements in northern occupied Palestine, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted the “Metulla” settlement with a rocket barrage.

19- 15:00: Targeting a gathering of “israeli” enemy army soldiers at the newly established Al-Hamames site south of the city of Khiam with a rocket barrage.
20- 15:00: Targeting a gathering of “israeli” enemy army soldiers in Wadi al-Asafir south of the city of Khiam with a rocket barrage.
21- 15:00: Targeting a gathering of “israeli” enemy army soldiers east of the Khiam detention center with a rocket barrage.

22- 17:10: Targeting the Yodifat military industries company southeast of Akka with a rocket barrage.

23- 17:40: Targeting a gathering of “israeli” enemy army soldiers in Wadi al-Asafir south of the city of Khiam for the second time with a rocket barrage.

24- 17:45: Targeting a gathering of “israeli” enemy army vehicles and soldiers in Khallet al-Mahafir on the outskirts of the town of Adaysseh at the Lebanese-Palestinian border with a rocket barrage.

25- 17:45: Targeting the Mishmar HaCarmel missile defense site belonging to the “israeli” enemy army south of the occupied city of Haifa with a rocket barrage.

26- 18:45: Targeting an artillery position in the “Sa’sa'” settlement with a rocket barrage.

27- At 20:00, the Al-Abad site and its surroundings opposite the border town of Houla were targeted with qualitative missiles, achieving direct and confirmed hits.
28- At 21:15, a gathering of “israeli” enemy army vehicles and soldiers in the settlements of “Metulla” and “Kfar Giladi” at the Lebanese-Palestinian border were targeted with a missile barrage.

29- At 21:15, a gathering of “israeli” enemy army vehicles and soldiers at the newly established Al-Hamames site, the Al-Ajl Hill site, and the Fatima Gate at the Lebanese-Palestinian border were targeted with missile barrages.

30- At 22:00, after monitoring an “israeli” enemy army force advancing towards the Al-Khanouq area in the border town of Aitaroun, the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted them with artillery shells, followed by direct clashes with light and medium weapons.

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Toward a Revolutionary Charter for Comprehensive Liberation

The time has come to stop prioritizing Western approval, to stop promoting conciliatory frameworks, and to stop treating the strategy of resistance as obsolete. Instead, we must align with the masses in their steadfast fight for liberation.

Translation of a statement by Palestinian and Arab thought leaders, including Ghassan Abu Sittah, Sobhi Sobhi, Wissam Al-Faqaawi, Salah Hammouri, and others.

As liberation movements in the Global South forged their new political language reflecting the perspective of colonized peoples, Amílcar Cabral was one of several leaders who identified the role of intellectuals and the educated elite as a critical vulnerability at the heart of popular revolutions.

Some intellectuals have sought to promote Western-friendly approaches while normalizing conciliatory, defeatist frameworks.

Cabral’s warning resurfaces sharply in the Palestinian and Arab context, after a brutal and unprecedented genocide met with a widespread silence and betrayal from the public, and complicity on the part of many Arab and Muslim regimes. A prevailing trend among “functionary” intellectuals has exchanged the trenches of resistance for the salons of liberalism and neoliberalism, preferring to retreat from the organic struggle of the masses in favor of academic cosplay from within the colonial core.

Arab intellectuals, and especially Palestinian intellectuals, can only fulfil their historic national role through organic alignment with the masses, who are the primary incubator of true resistance and its ultimate horizon. Intellectuals must devote their efforts to help organize and channel the immense potential energy and moral reserves of the masses, whose displays of steadfastness and sacrifice during the recent wars of extermination have rarely been equalled in contemporary history.

Some intellectuals have sought to promote Western-friendly approaches while normalizing conciliatory, defeatist frameworks. They introduce terms such as “weapons regulation” – rather than calling it by the proper term, “disarmament” – to strip the armed struggle of its liberational character and recast it as a procedural or security matter.

This echoes the “security chaos” discourse of the Oslo Authority, which framed any weapon held outside imperial or Zionist control as a threat. Weapons were transferred from the domain of popular resistance into the embrace of bureaucratic institutions bound by international obligations. In effect this domesticates the weapons and neutralises their role in resistance, which is what has happened before under conditions of surrender.

This “Day-After” thinking relies on the distortion of concepts with deep existential significance and reduces them to artificial, shallow contexts.

It comes as part of a wider strategy. Those supporting “weapons regulation” invariably fail to address any comprehensive strategic framework for resistance. Global solidarity is held up as an alternative to struggle in the field; resistance is declared dead; and the Palestinian people are relegated to passive victims awaiting a global awakening that has been promised for decades but has never materialized. It represents an inversion of reality: field resistance is the primary force, and solidarity follows in its wake. Replacing resistance with solidarity undermines popular agency and scorns the bloodshed of countless sacrifices.

At its core, this trend aligns with systems of dependency and the liberal frameworks which seek to confine Palestinian and Arab resistance within modes deemed acceptable to the West and the Zionist entity. It reframes the struggle as a human rights issue to be settled with negotiation and recasts disarmament and surrender as intellectual positions under the guise of “weapons regulation”. Such narratives exploit humanitarian crises, while promoting political liquidation and absolving cultural elites from confronting the structural nature of colonial oppression.

These voices theorise a “new era” which is an imposed ideological construct designed to reshape national aspirations in the service of dominant powers, highlighting the close connection between cultural decline and political failure.

For decades, certain Arab regimes have branded Palestinian resistance as “terrorism”. Today, some intellectuals appear to echo that position, using the suffering of Gaza to argue that the historic conflict has ended and Palestinians must accept defeat. Respect for the blood that has been shed demands we remain faithful to the national project, and do everything we can to consolidate popular steadfastness, rather than abandoning it. Zionist settler-colonialism continues to pursue a strategy of a final solution, banking on exhausting the resistance and support from the masses. Promoting such defeatist theses strengthens such a strategy ideologically at the very moment we need maximum political and cultural steadfastness.

Recent publications, conferences and literature have failed to grasp the genocidal and settler-colonialist nature of the Zionist entity and its links to Arab regimes. Key terms are misused, producing a superficial and misleading discourse. These voices theorise a “new era” which is an imposed ideological construct designed to reshape national aspirations in the service of dominant powers, highlighting the close connection between cultural decline and political failure.

This “Day-After” thinking relies on the distortion of concepts with deep existential significance and reduces them to artificial, shallow contexts. Political decay inevitably produces intellectual and cultural decline, a pattern familiar in liberation movements across the Global South. Comparative studies of colonialism and genocide are distorted to serve agendas hostile to resistance, making conceptual clarity essential.

These writings reveal more than a cultural decline. By attempting to write the obituary of resistance movements in order to justify future arrangements dictated by Zionist, American, and compliant Arab authorities, such thinking in fact sounds the death knell of Arab intellectuals themselves, and the cultural currents they espouse, in an act of profound submission and fragmentation.

The term “apartheid” is often invoked by Palestinian intellectuals and politicians, but they understand the concept superficially at best. It is nothing new—even a former US president used the term. While it might be useful as a diagnosis, the description is limited, partial, and potentially misleading. Most settler-colonial regimes have practiced segregation. What they have not followed is the structural logic of mass extermination, which defines the Zionist project, as many experts agree.

This simplification obscures the genocidal nature of Zionist settler-colonialism, misrepresents erstwhile solidarity movements, and criminalizes resistance.

The existential threat posed by Zionist settler-colonialism lies in its fundamentally genocidal structure, not merely its practice of segregation. It is not a copy of South Africa’s apartheid and invoking South Africa as a model is misleading. Segregationist systems have been seen from North America to Australia. What distinguishes Zionism is its mechanisms of structural extermination. Reducing the conflict to a kind of apartheid ignores this reality and risks the promotion of solutions based on unrelated historical contexts.

Viewing Zionism through the lens of apartheid isolates the outcome while erasing three centuries of colonial causes in South Africa. It normalizes long-term colonial domination, and presents international solidarity, legal action, and boycotts as the only “solution”. This simplification obscures the genocidal nature of Zionist settler-colonialism, misrepresents erstwhile solidarity movements, and criminalizes resistance.

By contrast, the Algeria model is analytically closer to Palestine. Instead of settling for rhetorical lamentation, the cause openly advocated for armed revolution; it identified structural colonialism as the cause of the problem; and insisted on its removal as the path to liberation. Algeria’s example challenges the dominant discourse by emphasizing resistance as the means to achieve freedom, not negotiation within imposed limits.

Repeatedly invoking apartheid offers Western audiences a simplified view that focuses on individual criminals or extremist settlers while ignoring the settler-colonial state itself. It also serves Palestinians and Arabs who lack the political courage to confront the core issue. Limiting criticism to apartheid reproduces the legalistic mindset of international human rights frameworks, which inadvertently justify the system by condemning “repression” while leaving colonial sovereignty intact.

Return to the Masses: A Call for Revolutionary Intellectual Alignment

Amílcar Cabral, founder of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, coined the concept of “returning to the source” as a call to re-root liberation in the lived reality of the people. It was not a nostalgic gesture, but a strategic imperative: for Cabral, the popular masses—their authentic culture and extraordinary willingness to sacrifice—formed the first and most essential line of resistance.

Central to Cabral’s vision was a challenge to the intellectual elite. In colonized societies, the petit bourgeoisie occupies a precarious position: possessing the knowledge and tools to manage society, while being socially and culturally conditioned to serve as intermediaries for the colonial system. Cabral left them with a stark choice: betray the revolution or undergo a radical intellectual and class realignment, embedding themselves in the struggles of the masses.

In the Palestinian context, this dilemma is plain for all to see. Many intellectuals have aligned themselves with comprador regimes and imperial centers, shaping the national project to suit external interests rather than reconnecting with the grassroots struggle. Our proposal for a “Charter for Comprehensive Revolutionary Liberation” calls on Palestinian and Arab intellectuals—academics, NGO workers, researchers, and political and military bureaucrats—to confront this historic moment with courage and ethical commitment. The call is clear: return to the source—to the environments that sustain resistance, where ordinary people create extraordinary acts of sacrifice, as witnessed in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen. This contrasts sharply with intellectuals who compete for personal gain at the expense of their people.

Global South intellectuals are constrained by the dominance of “colonial enlightenment”. Many interpret resistance through a Western lens, shaped by class and personal priorities, while fearing—or even opposing—the revolutionary potential of the masses. For them, liberation becomes a request for insignificant concessions rather than the dismantling of colonial structures. Returning to the grassroots—the refugee camps, villages, cities, traditional social networks, and local resistant practices—is treated as a burden, something to be jettisoned in pursuit of a false promise of colonial modernity and individual advancement.

Their discourse is deliberately convoluted, indirect, and donor-friendly, creating a knowledge gap that separates them from the frontline actors paying the ultimate price.

The harmful role of compliant intellectuals emerges in their attempts to “modernize” and “civilize” resistance to suit colonial sensitivities. They strip liberation movements of their struggle-driven content and recast them within liberal institutional frameworks. Many deliberately ignore—or deride—the revolutionary potential of local grounding, and prefer to import liberal fantasies, such as treating victims and occupiers as “equal citizens”, while the reality is one of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and systemic destruction.

When these intellectuals promote ideas like a “state for all its citizens”, institutional reform, liberal democracy, or national unity within such frameworks, they exclude the popular masses whose sacrifices sustain the struggle. After decades of failed settlements, such proposals are pathways to diplomatic fixes rather than liberation. Cultural authority is weaponized to mask the structural brutality of the settler-colonial and imperialist project, transforming it into a tool for negotiation rather than resistance.

Their discourse is deliberately convoluted, indirect, and donor-friendly, creating a knowledge gap that separates them from the frontline actors paying the ultimate price. It serves as a class disguise, concealing ties between compliant elites, allied Arab regimes, and the colonial core. This results in the exclusion of the masses as drivers of their own liberation struggles, and reduces existential conflicts to academic exercises.

Any national project loses its revolutionary core if it ignores historical actors and actors in the field, particularly armed resistance fighters, and becomes merely an instrument for elite authority. True ideology, in contrast, is a practical force which enables the masses to decode layers of exploitation imposed by complicit cultural stewards. The problem is not merely academic abstraction—it is a fundamentally opposed class and political position, stripping liberation movements of popular momentum and reducing them to intellectual exercises favouring colonial and comprador states.

For Palestine, success requires structural rejection of dependent state apparatuses and colonial systems. Every revolutionary, every fighter, and every intellectual must sever intellectual, political, and cultural ties with the instruments of compradorship—from the colonial core to allied functionary regimes—to restore popular agency and pursue genuine liberation.

Charter for Comprehensive Liberation

We, as members of the Palestinian Arab people and the wider Arab nation, and as academics, researchers and workers in intellectual and cultural fields, recognize the profound existential predicament brought about by class structures, functionary positions and cultural backgrounds under a genocidal settler-colonial system.

We therefore declare our full and unwavering alignment with the choice of our popular masses, their historic struggle and their comprehensive resistance in all arenas. Without hesitation, we affirm our readiness to bear any cost that may arise from this position, regardless of how great it may be.

This statement calls on Arab intellectuals to stand with us in declaring an end to the intermediary intellectual and the functionary agent, and the birth of the resistant, organic and engaged intellectual who views knowledge and culture not as a luxury or a profession but as a central weapon in the struggle of our people and our nation toward comprehensive liberation and unity.

Accordingly, we affirm the following:

First: Concepts of liberation and the national project must be formulated from the real material conditions of resistance environments: the refugee camp, the village, the prison cell, the trench and the tunnel. We reject imported liberal frameworks and ready-made formulas designed according to the preferences and interests of comprador forces and the colonial core. These models are used as tools for social engineering to freeze and neutralize Arab social and political forces from the real struggle, while the enemy continues to pursue its goals ruthlessly to their conclusion. True liberation begins with dismantling epistemic colonialism as a prerequisite for full liberation.

Second: We reject all forms of comprador-based funding, regardless of its source. Such funding is politically conditioned and aims to domesticate Palestinian and Arab consciousness under different labels. It is essential to dismantle the authority of intermediaries and to reject the rent-seeking structures of Arab intellectuals and bureaucracies tied to donors and financiers if we are to achieve a genuine and revolutionary understanding of the national project. Turning national and resistance work into employment within NGOs, government bodies or research centers funded by imperial powers or comprador regimes constitutes the most dangerous structural breach of the national project that will inevitably lead to defeat and ruin.

Therefore, we call for complete revolutionary transparency and rejection of all outside funding. The sole criterion for any activity or program must be its value towards resistance, without conditions imposed by funders or donors. This charter also rejects any false claim of neutrality by Arab intellectuals. The intellectual is neither mediator nor neutral bystander. One either stands with the people in the trenches of confrontation and resistance or one finds oneself in the camp of the enemy. Any discourse that ignores the genocide and the necessity of comprehensive resistance in favor of reformist language is complicit.

Third: Actors in the field must be reinstated as the sole and ultimate reference. The national project cannot be directed remotely from imperial capitals or the capitals of comprador regimes. Legitimate political authority is seized by those who carry arms and by the supporting environments that directly confront the colonial machine on the ground without pause. They offer daily sacrifices and blood, and their authentic local culture forms the moral and existential shield of the national project.

Fourth: Comprador bourgeois cultural identity must be dismantled. Intellectuals must consciously abandon the pursuit of academic prestige or career advancement tied to the approval of international institutions and subordinate functionary organizations. Knowledge and its production should instead serve resisting social structures such as refugee camps, villages and popular resistance communities.

Fifth: A strategy of class alignment and transforming knowledge into material force. We call on every Arab academic and intellectual to end their submission to the privileges granted by the colonial core and comprador regimes. Their research tools and technical knowledge must become ammunition in the hands of the resistance. Knowledge that is neither understood nor used in trenches and battlefields is sterile and historically hostile to the national project. A true intellectual committed to the liberation of their people must move from observation to participation, placing technical and intellectual expertise in all fields at the disposal of the resistance’s popular base without conditions.

Sixth: We call for exposing and boycotting intellectuals and academics who persist in acting as functionary agents of the colonial core and its Arab instruments of compradorship. This is not a matter of personal reprisal. It is a necessary structural purification of the liberation path from the impurities of compradorship in a national project that is greater than any individual.

After the recent wars of extermination, in which our people paid with hundreds of thousands of martyrs and wounded, after the total destruction of Gaza, and amid ongoing aggression in the West Bank, across Palestine, Lebanon and the Arab region, silence has become a betrayal of this blood.

We call for the intellectual and political unmasking of all who refuse to relinquish their roles as intermediaries and agents. Committed intellectuals should monitor and document any discourse that adopts the language of the colonizer and publicize it as an example of cultural betrayal. We also call for the exposing of conditional funding received by organizations and research centers that imposes agendas of normalization or pacification on Arab societies, particularly on Palestinian society.

We also call for the isolation and boycotting of elites that choose to align with the colonial core and comprador regimes, and the rejection of their representation of the national project in any forum. The principle that must be established is clear: no representation without resistance, and no mandate except revolutionary legitimacy. Its sole source is the social geography that sustains resistance, the trenches, the tunnels and the prison cells.

On this basis, we call for establishing an Observatory for Liberation Culture as an independent popular body composed of committed and engaged intellectuals dedicated to the national project and its requirements. Its mission will be to evaluate the performance of cultural and political institutions according to their adherence to, or distance from, the Charter of Comprehensive Liberation.

The Cultural Alternative of Resistance

The purpose of this charter is not limited to criticism. It also seeks to propose an existential and intellectual alternative as a moral, national and historical responsibility. From this perspective, we affirm our commitment to building a cultural alternative of resistance that emerges from the collapse of epistemic domination. This requires adopting the epistemology of resistance as an engaged field of knowledge rooted in the lived environment of popular resistance and collective struggle.

Accordingly, we affirm the following principles:

First: Rooting knowledge in lived reality

Localizing knowledge means recognizing the living field and material conditions of popular resistance environments as the primary laboratory for intellectual work and knowledge production. The organic intellectual committed to national and Arab liberation cannot remain a neutral observer or retreat into academic isolation. Instead, methodological tools must become practical instruments that serve the historical sources of resistance – the fighter, the farmer, the worker and the refugee. The central role of academics and intellectuals is to bridge specialized knowledge gaps in ways that strengthen the durability and effectiveness of the resistance project.

Second: Intellectual sovereignty and dismantling the colonial lexicon

We call for genuine intellectual independence by breaking decisively from the lexicon of colonialism and developing unified conceptual tools for resistance. Purging our language of terms and frameworks shaped within imperial centers and aligned with their interests is an existential necessity. Concepts such as disarmament, terrorism, governance and neoliberal reform are frequently deployed to fragment national structures and dilute the struggle. Confronting this requires dismantling Westernized linguistic frameworks within Arab academia and replacing them with a vocabulary rooted in the popular language of resistance.

The value of any academic thesis or intellectual position should be measured on the basis of whether it can be understood and used in the trench, the refugee camp, the tunnel and the prison cell. The task of the intellectual committed to resistance is to help provide a strategic compass for the masses, not to produce abstract knowledge that entrenches political alienation. We also reject Western centrality as the sole reference for truth, particularly in writing the historical narrative and value system of our people and their resistance.

Third: Democratizing knowledge and turning ideology into material force

Revolutionary ideology is not a collection of slogans. It is a framework that clarifies the geopolitical dimensions of the struggle and exposes structural exploitation, including the intersecting interests that link sectors of Arab society with imperial powers and the Zionist settler project. At the same time, resistance environments provide intellectuals with lived experience, practical knowledge and concrete facts that prevent theory from drifting into the abstractions of liberal discourse.

The shared destiny of the fighter and the intellectual transforms knowledge from an intellectual luxury into symbolic weapons that operate side-by-side with material weapons. This connection grants resistance action its historical meaning, its existential horizon and its moral legitimacy.

This charter calls for reclaiming national decision-making from elites accustomed to acting as intermediaries and agents, and returning it to the masses and the social environments that sustain resistance and shape history through their sacrifices. It is a call to move beyond the politics of begging towards the dismantling of colonial structures.

In light of the immense sacrifices of the masses, the minimum ethical responsibility of the Arab intellectual is to abandon elite privilege and narrow self-interest and to fully align with the act of resistance. We affirm our pride in belonging to the resilient Palestinian people, to our Arab national identity, and to our intellectual roots in the Global South. From these foundations we derive our human and international outlook and seek to reclaim the history that colonialism has attempted to erase.

We reject the hierarchies of Western centrality and the illusion of chasing its defective model of modernity. We refuse the role of the subordinate mimic. Resistance knowledge alone can help shape the emergence of a free Arab human being who not only removes the colonizer from our land but uproots its influence from our consciousness.

Our will cannot accept accommodating the existing order, but on dismantling its foundations, regardless of the balance of power.

Let us break the chains of knowledge until victory.

Long live an Arab Palestine.

source: Al Akhbar
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Statement by Popular Resistance and Community Action Groups in Lebanon

We are approaching the thirtieth month of the genocidal war in Lebanon and Palestine waged by the Zionist entity under US auspices and with the absolute support of an international community complicit in our killing and attempted annihilation. In Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon, we are witnessing, before the eyes of the world, the expansion of the occupation in all its forms, while nations, including our own governments, collude in criminalizing the right of peoples to resist and determine their own destiny, instead of uniting to hold the occupation accountable and disarm it to overthrow and eradicate its expansionist, settler-colonial system. These practices are not limited to the Mashreq alone; rather, they constitute a despotic pattern through which the hegemonic empire attempts to criminalize resistance and political liberation movements that oppose genocide and defend the land.

During the period falsely labeled a “ceasefire”—a unilateral agreement between Palestine and Lebanon that laid the groundwork for the expansion of the occupation—the Zionist entity launched over 15,000 air, land, and sea attacks against us in Lebanon, resulting in 397 martyrs and over 1,102 wounded. Meanwhile, under the dictates of the United States, the Lebanese government’s priorities were focused on attacking the families of resistance fighters, attempting to disarm them, and trying to impose laws that would deprive the people of their resources, heritage, and personal data, thus paving the way for multinational corporations, a key instrument of the occupation.

Before the current escalation, the attacks had already resulted in the martyrdom of over 4,000 people, including 316 children and 790 women. Women and children constituted more than a quarter of the victims, 51% of whom were young people. These attacks also directly targeted 11 journalists. With 222 healthcare workers killed and 330 others injured, 158 ambulances and 57 fire trucks were bombed, and some 90,076 facilities were damaged, 23,489 of which were destroyed. Lebanese army posts, municipal buildings, and hospitals were targeted (8 hospitals were forcibly closed and 38 others were damaged). Civil defense and municipal personnel were targeted, particularly at the Civil Defense center in Baalbek (13 killed), in addition to municipal workers and buildings. The number of Lebanese detainees is estimated at 22 (11 of whom were arrested during the 2024 ground invasion). Last week, at the beginning of the current escalation, Israel killed 268 martyrs and caused additional damage. More than 500,000 people were displaced from the South, the Bekaa, and the suburbs. They urgently need shelter, food, water, and other services, in light of the state’s reluctance to spend money to hellp the people.

In parallel with the extermination of people and the destruction of their livelihoods, the systematic environmental destruction resulted in the burning of approximately 10,800 hectares (108 million square meters) due to phosphorus shells and devastating airstrikes. In addition, more than 47,000 ancient olive trees were destroyed, burned, or stolen, and 134 hectares of olive groves, 48 ​​hectares of citrus groves, and 44 hectares of banana groves were damaged. Twenty-six public water pumping stations were destroyed, and the Al-Wazzani and Maysat stations were taken out of service, depriving 150,000 people of water. Losses in the water and irrigation sector are estimated at between $171 million and $356 million.

During that time,, the enemy destroyed 18 million square meters of forests and woodlands (oak, holm oak, etc.), and contaminated the land with various toxic and deadly pollutants b spraying herbicides and other unknown chemical and biological substances. These pollutants destroy the ecosystem and render the soil unsuitable for agriculture for many years.

As usual, popular and community initiatives have begun mobilizing to provide aid and show solidarity. While this humanitarian approach is of paramount importance, standing in stark contrast to the sectarianism that has distorted Lebanese society, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the current government’s stance not only aligns its rhetoric with the dictates of past and present colonial powers, but also complies with them without question or consideration for the national interest and the right of Lebanese citizens to repel these ongoing attacks. This is essential for preserving their lives and the lives and safety of their loved ones, and for upholding their right to live without fear of a brutal enemy that commits atrocities with impunity.

And now, the enemy is preparing to occupy Lebanon, starting with the South, the Bekaa Valley, and the southern suburbs of Beirut, which bear the brunt of the daily destruction and killing. This operation comes in the context of a fierce war on Iran and its people by the Zionist enemy in alliance with the United States, whose fascist administration declares daily its intention to control the world and use excessive violence against anyone who does not adopt its leadership and racist superiority, and it warns us of a return to the worst eras of colonialism and oppression.

This war unfolds in parallel with attempts to restructure the country’s political economy in ways that deepen dependency and inequality. The economic crisis and ongoing destruction are being used to accelerate neoliberal restructuring, privatization of public resources, and the transfer of wealth into the hands of domestic elites and multinational corporations.

In its first year, the Lebanese government, which was blatantly appointed by Western embassies and emissaries, began proposing a series of laws that would plunder the country’s resources, agricultural heritage, and ecological balance for the benefit of multinational corporations responsible for the collapse of food systems worldwide. It adopted a policy of collective punishment against the people of areas targeted by the occupation, depriving them of the resources needed for recovery and reconstruction. Its subservience to colonial powers, it seems, might not end with the recent decision aimed at criminalizing resistance, indeed, criminalizing the people’s right to defend themselves in the face of the state’s institutions, including the army, failing to fulfill their duties by official order from the authorities. This criminalization is accompanied by an organized media war echoing Israeli-US propaganda against the right to self-defense and self-determination, employing an unacceptable racist, sectarian, classist, exclusionary, and divisive rhetoric.

As in previous moments of crisis, Lebanon’s working people, small farmers, displaced communities, and the urban poor bear the overwhelming cost of war, displacement, and reconstruction, while political elites and financial actors seek to reorganize the economy in ways that preserve their power, or hand it to the occupation.

In this context, and based on our firm belief in the inherent rights of peoples, including the right to self-determination and the right to resistance, and in light of external and internal attempts to force society to surrender and accept Zionist hegemony over the region, we, the popular resistance and popular action groups in Lebanon, affirm the following principles:

● The right of peoples to resist and defend their land and sovereignty, as an inherent and natural human right, is enshrined and guaranteed by international covenants and treaties, foremost among them the UN Charter and agreements related to the rights of peoples to self-determination. Our exercise of this right is an embodiment of these legal principles, which are not subject to interpretation or abrogation by anyone.

● We declare our categorical rejection of the current policies and pressures exerted by the regime, which aim to restrict or circumvent this legitimate right. Protecting national sovereignty is not achieved through retreat, but rather through adherence to historical and legal rights.

Therefore, we raise a collective cry and an urgent appeal to the people of the land, all the inhabitants of Lebanon, and all freedom-loving people worldwide, to take immediate action in support of this position by confronting the project of the government, the empire, and the occupation. We must document the violations and resist the media blackout and disinformation campaigns to which the people of the land are subjected as they resist and defend their land and their legitimate rights. Let us mobilize across the globe to reject the mechanization of genocidal systems, uniting wherever we are to dismantle the expansionist, settler-colonial system that seeks to dominate our planet. This can be achieved by organizing demonstrations and sit-ins in front of the embassies of the occupying power and complicit states to amplify the voice of popular resistance, launching widespread petition campaigns to affirm popular support for the right to defend the land, standing in solidarity with our displaced people, and confronting the imperialist onslaught by any means necessary.

Rejecting any compromise on our right to self-determination, we affirm our commitment to continuing this struggle, relying on the awareness and solidarity of the people to protect what remains of our national sovereignty and dignity. It is time for the peoples of the world to be freed from the empire and for sovereignty to be restored to all the people of the earth!

Beirut, March 9, 2026

Signatories

Agricultural Movement in Lebanon
Socio-Economic Action Collective (SEAC)
Arab Network for Food Sovereignty
Cartography of Darkness
Seed In A Box
Free Palestine Front
Tafkik
Sikka Saida
Development Movement
Deyer Men Dar
Arab Network for Food Sovereignty
Siyada Network: for a popular sovereignty over food systems and resources
Aatma
Agricultural Committee in Bakhoun Municipality – Al-Miniyeh-Diniya District
Bladi Khadra
Cultural Club of The South -AUB
People’s Movement

source: Al Akhbar

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12 Women in Year 12 (in the Second Year of the War)

In the 12th year of the EZLN, thousands of miles away from Beijing, 12 women arrive on March 8, 1996, with their faces concealed.

1. Yesterday…

Her face covered in black, only her eyes and some hair at the nape of her neck remain visible. In her gaze, the sparkle of someone searching. An M-1 carbine slung across her chest, in what is known as the “assault” position, and a pistol at her waist. On her left chest, the seat of hope and conviction, she wears the insignia of Major of Infantry of an insurgent army that, until that frosty dawn of January 1, 1994, called itself the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Under her command is the rebel column that assaults the historic capital of the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas, San Cristóbal de Las Casas. The central park of San Cristóbal is deserted. Only the indigenous men and women she commands witness the moment when the Major, a Tzotzil indigenous woman and rebel, collects the national flag and hands it over to the leaders of the rebellion, the so-called “Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee.” Over the radio, the Major reports: “We have recovered the flag. 10-23 stand by.” It is 2:00 a.m. southeastern time on January 1, 1994. 1:00 a.m. on New Year’s Day for the rest of the world. She waited ten years to say those seven words. She arrived in the mountains of the Lacandon Jungle in December 1984, less than twenty years old and with a lifetime of humiliation of indigenous people etched on her body. In December 1984, this dark-skinned woman said, “Enough is enough!” but she said it so quietly that only she could hear herself. In January 1994, this woman and tens of thousands of indigenous people no longer say but shout “Enough is enough!” They say it so loudly that everyone hears them…

On the outskirts of San Cristóbal, another rebel column commanded by a man—the only one with light skin and a large nose among the indigenous people attacking the city—has finished storming the police station. Indigenous people who spent New Year’s Eve locked up for the most serious crime in southeastern Chiapas—being poor—are freed from clandestine prisons. Eugenio Asparuk is the name of the insurgent captain, a Tzeltal indigenous rebel who, with his enormous nose, directs the search of the station. When the Major’s message arrives, Insurgent Captain Pedro, a Chol indigenous rebel, has finished taking over the Federal Highway Police barracks and securing the road between San Cristóbal and Tuxtla Gutiérrez; Insurgent Captain Ubilio, a Tzeltal indigenous rebel, has controlled the northern accesses to the city and taken the symbol of government handouts to the indigenous people, the National Indigenous Institute; Insurgent Captain Guillermo, a Chol indigenous rebel, has taken the most important high ground in the city, from where he dominates with his gaze the surprised silence that peeks through the windows of houses and buildings; Insurgent Captains Gilberto and Noé, Tzotzil and Tzeltal indigenous people respectively, rebels alike, finish storming the state judicial police headquarters, set it on fire, and march to secure the edge of the city that connects to the 31st military zone headquarters in Rancho Nuevo.

At 2:00 a.m. Southeast Time on January 1, 1994, five insurgent officers, all men, indigenous and rebels, listen to the radio and hear the voice of their commander, a woman, indigenous and rebel, saying, “We have recovered the flag, 10-23 stand by.” They repeat it to their troops, men and women, indigenous and rebels in their entirety, translating. “We’ve begun…”

In the municipal palace, the Major organizes the defense of the position and the protection of the men and women who are currently governing the city, all of whom are indigenous and rebels. A woman in arms protects them.

Among the indigenous leaders of the rebellion is a small woman, small even among small women. Her face is covered in black, leaving only her eyes and some hair at the nape of her neck exposed. Her gaze has the sparkle of someone who is searching. A sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun is slung across her back. Wearing the unique costume of the sandreseras, Ramona descends from the mountains, along with hundreds of women, heading for the city of San Cristóbal on the last night of 1993. Together with Susana and other indigenous men, she forms part of the indigenous leadership of the war that dawns in 1994, the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee-General Command of the EZLN. Commander Ramona will astonish the international media with her stature and brilliance when she appears at the Cathedral Dialogues carrying in her backpack the national flag that the Mayor recovered on January 1. Ramona does not know it at the time, and neither do we, but she already carries in her body a disease that is eating away at her life, silencing her voice and dimming her gaze. Ramona and the Mayor, the only women in the Zapatista delegation that is showing itself to the world for the first time in the Cathedral Dialogues, declare: “We were already dead, we didn’t count for anything,” and they say it as if taking stock of humiliations and forgetfulness.

The Major translates the journalists’ questions for Ramona. Ramona nods and understands, as if the answers they are asking for had always been there, in that small figure who laughs at Spanish and the way city dwellers behave. Ramona laughs when she doesn’t know she is dying. When she finds out, she continues to laugh. Before, she didn’t exist for anyone; now she exists, she is a woman, she is indigenous, and she is a rebel. Now Ramona lives, a woman of that race who has to die in order to live…

The Major watches as daylight begins to fill the streets of San Cristóbal. Her soldiers organize the defense of the old town and the protection of the men and women who are still asleep, indigenous and mestizo, all taken by surprise. The Major, a woman, indigenous and rebellious, has taken the city. Hundreds of armed indigenous people surround the old Royal City. A woman in arms commands them…

Minutes later, the rebel forces take control of Las Margaritas, and hours later, the government forces defending Ocosingo, Altamirano, and Chanal surrender. Huixtán and Oxchuc are taken as a column advances on the main prison in San Cristóbal. Seven municipal capitals are in the hands of the insurgents after the Major’s seven words.

The war of words has begun…

In those other places, other women, indigenous and rebellious, are rewriting the piece of history that they have had to bear in silence until that first day of January. Also nameless and faceless are:

Irma. An indigenous Chol woman and insurgent infantry captain, Irma leads one of the guerrilla columns that take the plaza of Ocosingo on January 1, 1994. From one side of the central park, she and the fighters under her command harassed the garrison guarding the municipal palace until they surrendered. Then Irma let down her braid, and her hair fell to her waist. As if to say, “Here I am, free and new,” Captain Irma’s hair shines, and continues to shine as night falls on Ocosingo, now in rebel hands…

Laura. Insurgent Infantry Captain. A Tzotzil woman, brave in battle and in her studies, Laura becomes captain of an all-male unit. But that’s not all: in addition to being men, her troops are recruits. With patience, like the mountain that watches her grow, Laura teaches and commands. When the men under her command hesitate, she sets an example. No one carries as much or walks as far as she does in her unit. After the attack on Ocosingo, she withdraws her unit, complete and in order. This fair-skinned woman boasts little or nothing, but she carries in her hands the rifle she took from a police officer, one of those who only saw indigenous women as objects to be humiliated or raped. After surrendering, the police officer, who until that day thought that women were only good for cooking and bearing children, runs away in his underwear…

Elisa. Insurgent Infantry Captain. She carries, as a war trophy, mortar shrapnel forever embedded in her body. She takes command of her column as it breaks through the ring of fire that fills the Ocosingo market with blood. Captain Benito has been wounded in the eye and, before losing consciousness, reports and orders: “They’ve got me, take command Captain Elisa.” Captain Elisa is already wounded when she manages to get a handful of fighters out of the market. When she gives orders, Captain Elisa, an indigenous Tzeltal woman, seems to be asking for forgiveness… but everyone obeys her…

Silvia. Insurgent Infantry Captain, ten days inside the mousetrap that Ocosingo became on January 2. Disguised as a civilian, she slips through the streets of a city full of federal troops, tanks, and cannons. A military checkpoint stops her. They let her pass almost immediately. “It’s impossible for such a young and fragile girl to be a rebel,” say the soldiers as they watch her walk away. When she rejoins her unit in the mountains, Silvia, a Chol indigenous woman and Zapatista rebel, looks sad. I cautiously ask her the reason for the sadness that dampens her laughter. “Back in Ocosingo,” she replies, lowering her gaze, “back in Ocosingo, all my music cassettes were left in my backpack. Now we don’t have them anymore.” She remains silent, holding her sorrow in her hands. I say nothing, I just share her sorrow and realize that in war, everyone loses what they love most…

Maribel. Insurgent Infantry Captain. She takes over the Las Margaritas radio station when her unit storms the municipal capital on January 1, 1994. She spent nine years living in the mountains to be able to sit in front of that microphone and say: “We are the product of 500 years of struggle: first against slavery…” The broadcast is not made due to technical problems, and Maribel retreats to cover the unit advancing on Comitán. Days later, she will have to escort the prisoner of war, General Absalón Castellanos Domínguez. Maribel is Tzeltal and was less than fifteen years old when she arrived in the mountains of southeastern Mexico. “The most difficult moment of those nine years was when I had to climb the first hill, the hill of hell. After that, everything got easier,” says the insurgent officer. When General Castellanos Domínguez is handed over, Captain Maribel is the first rebel to make contact with the government. Commissioner Manuel Camacho Solís shakes her hand and asks her age: “502,” says Maribel, who counts her birth year from when the rebellion began…

Isidora. Infantry insurgent. As a private, Isidora enters Ocosingo on January 1. As a private, Isidora leaves Ocosingo in flames, having spent hours evacuating her unit, composed entirely of men, with forty wounded. She also has shrapnel in her arms and legs. Isidora arrives at the medical station and hands over the wounded, asks for some water, and gets up. “Where are you going?” they ask her as they try to treat her wounds, which are bleeding, staining her face and reddening her uniform. “To bring the others,” says Isidora as she loads ammunition. They try to stop her but cannot. Private Isidora has said she must return to Ocosingo to rescue more of her comrades from the death song sung by mortars and grenades. They have to take her prisoner to stop her. “The good thing is that if they punish me, they can’t demote me,” says Isidora as she waits in the room that serves as her prison. Months later, when she is given the star that promotes her to infantry officer, Isidora, Tzeltal and Zapatista, looks alternately at the star and at the commanding officer and asks, like a scolded child, “Why?” She does not wait for an answer.

Amalia. Second Lieutenant of Health. With the quickest laugh in southeastern Mexico, Amalia lifts Captain Benito from the pool of blood where he lies unconscious and drags him to safety. She carries him on a stretcher and pulls him out of the death belt that surrounds the market. When someone talks about surrendering, Amalia, honoring the Chol blood that runs through her veins, gets angry and starts arguing. Everyone listens to her, even above the noise of explosions and gunshots. No one surrenders.

Elena. Lieutenant of Health. She arrived at the EZLN illiterate. There she learned to read, write, and what they call nursing. From treating diarrhea and giving vaccinations, Elena goes on to treat war wounds in her little hospital, which is also her home, warehouse, and pharmacy. With difficulty, she extracts the pieces of mortar lodged in the bodies of the Zapatistas who arrive at her medical post. “Some can be removed and others cannot,” says Elenita, a Chol and an insurgent, as if she were talking about memories and not pieces of lead…

In San Cristóbal, on the morning of January 11, 1994, she communicates with the big-nosed, fair-skinned man: “Someone has arrived who is asking questions, but I don’t understand the language. It sounds like he’s speaking English. I don’t know if he’s a journalist, but he has a camera.” “I’m on my way,” says the big-nosed man, adjusting his balaclava.

He loads the weapons they recovered from the police station into a vehicle and heads to the city center. They unload the weapons and distribute them among the indigenous people guarding the municipal palace. The foreigner is a tourist asking if he can leave the city. “No,” replies the balaclava-clad man with the disproportionate nose, “it’s better if you go back to your hotel. We don’t know what’s going to happen.” The foreign tourist leaves after asking for permission and taking a video. Meanwhile, the morning progresses, and curious onlookers, journalists, and questions arrive. The nose responds and explains to locals, tourists, and journalists. The Major is behind him. The balaclava talks and jokes. A woman in arms watches his back.

A journalist behind a television camera asks, “And who are you?” “Who am I?” hesitates the balaclava-clad man as he fights against sleepiness. “Yes,” insists the journalist, “are you called ‘Commander Tiger’ or ‘Commander Lion’?” “Ah! No,” replies the balaclava-clad man, rubbing his eyes in annoyance. “Then what is your name?” says the journalist as he moves the microphone and camera closer. The big-nosed balaclava-clad man replies: “Marcos. Subcomandante Marcos…” Above, the Pilatus planes fly overhead…

From that point on, the impeccable military action of the takeover of San Cristóbal becomes blurred, and with it, the fact that it was a woman, an indigenous rebel, who commanded the operation is erased. The participation of women combatants in the other actions of January 1 and in the long ten-year journey of the EZLN’s birth is relegated to the background. The face hidden by the balaclava is further obscured when the spotlight turns to Marcos. The Major says nothing, continuing to watch over that prominent nose that now has a name for the rest of the world. No one asks her name…

In the early hours of January 2, 1994, this woman led the retreat from San Cristóbal to the mountains. She returned to San Cristóbal fifty days later, as part of the escort guarding the safety of the EZLN CCRI-CG delegates to the Cathedral Dialogue. Some female journalists interviewed her and asked her name. “Ana María. Major Insurgent Ana María,” she replied, looking at them with her dark eyes. She left the Cathedral and disappeared for the rest of 1994. Like her other compañeras, she had to wait and remain silent…

In December 1994, ten years after becoming a soldier, Ana María receives the order to prepare to break through the siege imposed by government forces around the Lacandon Jungle. In the early hours of December 19, the EZLN takes position in thirty-eight municipalities. Ana María commands the action in the municipalities of the Chiapas Highlands. Twelve female officers are with her in the action: Monica, Isabela, Yuri, Patricia, Juana, Ofelia, Celina, Maria, Gabriela, Alicia, Zenaida, and Maria Luisa. Ana Maria herself takes the municipal capital of Bochil.

After the Zapatistas withdrew, the federal army high command ordered that nothing be said about the breach in the siege and that it be handled in the media as a mere propaganda stunt by the EZLN. The federal forces’ pride was doubly wounded: the Zapatistas had broken out of the siege and, what’s more, a woman was commanding a unit that had taken several municipal capitals. This was impossible to accept, so a lot of money had to be thrown at it to keep the action from becoming known.

2. Today

First through the involuntary action of her brothers in arms, then through the deliberate action of the government, Ana María, and with her the Zapatista women, were minimized and belittled…

I am finishing writing this when…

Doña Juanita arrives. With old Antonio dead, Doña Juanita is slipping away from life as slowly as she makes coffee. Still strong in body, Doña Juanita has announced that she is dying. “Don’t talk nonsense, Grandma,” I say, avoiding her gaze. “Look,” she replies, “if we die in order to live, no one is going to stop me from living. And certainly not a young boy like you,” says Doña Juanita, the wife of old Antonio, a woman who has been rebellious all her life and, as it seems, also in her death…

Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence, there appears…

She has no military rank, no uniform, no weapon. She is a Zapatista, but only she knows it. She has no face and no name, just like the Zapatista women. She fights for democracy, freedom, and justice, just like the Zapatistas. She is part of what the EZLN calls “civil society,” people without a party, people who do not belong to the “political society” made up of rulers and leaders of political parties. She is part of that diffuse but real whole that is the part of society that says, day after day, “Enough is enough!” She too has said “Enough is enough!” At first she surprised herself with those words, but then, by repeating them and, above all, by living them, she stopped being afraid of them, of herself. She is now a Zapatista, having joined her destiny to that of the Zapatistas in this new delirium that so terrifies political parties and intellectuals in power, the Zapatista National Liberation Front. She has already fought against everyone, against her husband, her lover, her boyfriend, her children, her friend, her brother, her father, her grandfather. “You’re crazy,” was the unanimous verdict. She leaves behind no small thing. Her renunciation, if it were a matter of size, is greater than that of the rebels who have nothing to lose. Her whole world demands that she forget about “those crazy Zapatistas,” and conformity calls her to sit in the comfortable indifference of those who only see and care for themselves. She leaves everything behind. She says nothing. Early in the morning, she sharpens the tender tip of hope and emulates the January 1st of her Zapatista compañerxs many times in a single day that, at least 364 times a year, has nothing to do with January 1st.

She smiles. She used to admire the Zapatistas, but not anymore. She stopped admiring them the moment she realized that they were only a reflection of her own rebelliousness, of her own hope.

She discovers that she was born on January 1, 1994. Since then, she feels alive and that what she was always told was a dream and a utopia can be true.

She begins to quietly and without payment, together with others, pursue that complicated dream that some call hope: everything for everyone, nothing for ourselves.

She arrives on March 8 with her face concealed, her name hidden. Thousands of women arrive with her. More and more arrive. Tens, hundreds, thousands, millions of women around the world remembering that there is still much to be done, remembering that there is still much to fight for. Because it turns out that dignity is contagious, and women are the most likely to fall ill with this uncomfortable disease…

This March 8 is a good excuse to remember and give credit to the Zapatista insurgent women, Zapatistas, both armed and unarmed.

To the rebellious and uncomfortable Mexican women who have insisted on emphasizing that history, without them, is nothing more than a poorly written story…

3. Tomorrow…

If there is one, it will be with them and, above all, thanks to them.

From the mountains of southeastern Mexico,

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos

Published at Enlace Zapatista on March 11th, 1996.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.

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You deserve to feel loved.

I love you more than you know.

These two statements are quite possibly related. :3

🩵🩵🩵

There's now anecdotal evidence emerging from Iran that while Iranians may be critical of the Iranian regime, the devastation wrought by the US & Israel has both revealed those countries' callousness around civilian deaths, and led many Iranians to fear the destruction of their country *more* than the continuance of the current regime - a resurgence of nationalism.

After failing to 'support' the uprisings before the war, Iranians realise the attackers are *not* their friends!

#Iran
h/t FT

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