Our Word Is Our Weapon Selected Readings. Audio Visuele Media

This original and historic CD, recorded in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico, features the internationally renowned yet enduringly enigmatic Zapatista spokesperson, Subcomandante Marcos, reading selections from the English edition of his acclaimed book, OUR WORD IS OUR WEAPON. In these dark times of occupation, oppression and authoritarian control, the voice of Subcomandante Marcos sounds and inspiring wake up call for principled resistance, democracy, movement building, and working across borders and languages to build "one world in which many worlds fit."

All royalties from the sale of the CD benefit autonomous media projects in Chiapas.

CD CONTENTS
1) Opening Remarks at the First Intercontinental Encuentro for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism 11:37
Excerpt of a speech originally delivered in Spanish by Subcomandante Marcos on July 27, 1996, introducing the Zapatistas to the those gathered for the first Intercontinental Encuentro by saying "Let us introduce ourselves. We are the Zapatista National Liberation Army. For ten years, we lived in these mountains, preparing to fight a war. In these mountains, we built an army. Below, in the cities and plantations, we did not exist. Our lives were worth less than those of machines and animals. We were like stones, like weeds in the road...This is who we are..The voice that arms itself to be heard.The face that hides itself to be seen.The name that hides itself to be named. The red star who calls out to humanity and the world to be heard, to be seen, to be named..."

2) To Plant The Tree of Tomorrow 11:28
At the close of Encuentro in Defense of Cultural Heritage, held in La Realidad, Chiapas, in August 1999, some one asked "What do the Zapatistas want?" Part of El Sup's response is a beautiful story about an old man in a village who didn't want to plant beans or corn or coffee like the other members of the community, he wanted to plant trees on the mountain...

3) Why We Use the Weapon of Resistance 22:36
In October 1999 Subcomandante Marcos participated (by way of video message) with Zack de la Rocha, Yaotl, Herman Bellinghausen, Nacho Pineda and Javier Elorriaga in roundtable discussion about underground culture and resistance. Thistrack is an excerpt from El Sup's presentation. "We have the arm of the word. We also have the weapon of our culture, of being what we are. We have the weapon of music, the weapon of dance. We have the weapon of the mountain, that old friend and companero who fights along with us, with her roads, hiding places, and hillsides, with her trees, with her rains, with her suns, with her dawns, with her moons..."

4) The Word and the Silence 1:57
In this communique written in Spanish dated October 12, 1995 , and signed "The Clandestine Indigenous Revolutionary Committee General Command of the Zapatista National Liberation Army," Subcomandante Marcos reads "What matters is our eldest elders who received the word and the silence as a gift in order to know themselves and to touch the heart of the other...When we are silenced we remain very much alone.Speaking, we heal the pain. Speaking, we accompany one another. Power uses the word to impose his empire of silence. We use the word to renew ourselves. Power uses silence to hide his crimes. We use silence to listen to one another, to know one another..."

total playing time: 50:09

BONUS TRACK
5) On Independend Media video 9:19
The CD also features a Quicktime video file ? Subcomandate Marcos's video message to the "Freeing the Media" radical media gathering organized by Paper Tiger TV, FAIR, and others in New York City, January 31, 1997. Video originally shot by Kerry Apple of the Human Bean Company. Marcos speaks Spanish in the video, which has subtitles in English. "By not having to answer to the monster media monopolies, the independent media has a life?s work, a political project, and a purpose: to let the truth be known. This is increasingly more important in the globalization process. Truth becomes a knot of resistance against the lie. Our only possibility is to save the truth, to maintain it, and distribute it, little by little, in the same way that the books were saved in Fahrenheit 451..."