Movement for Justice in El Barrio
EL BARRIO, NYC
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28TH, 4:00 PM
RSVP by Monday, February 15th:
(212) 561-0555 or movementforjusticeinelbarrio@yahoo.com
childcare and English & Spanish translations provided
An echo that turns itself into many voices, into a network of voices that, before the deafness of power, opts to speak to itself, knowing itself to be one and many, acknowledging itself to be equal in its desire to listen and be listened to, recognizing itself as different in the tonalities and levels of voices forming it. A network of voices that resist the war that power wages on them.
– Words of the Zapatistas at the "First Intercontinental Encuentro for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism."
An invitation to: Members and families of organizations, community members, and people of good conscience, who are fighting against displacement in their communities across NYC.
From: Movement for Justice in El Barrio
Third NYC Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement
An Encuentro is a space for people to come together, it is a gathering. An Encuentro is not a meeting, a panel or a conference, it is a way of sharing developed by the Zapatistas as another form of doing politics: from below and to the left. It is a place where we can all speak, we will all listen, and we can all learn. It is a place where we can share the many different struggles that make us one.
EL BARRIO, NYC
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28TH, 4:00 PM
"The rebels search each other out. They walk towards one another, breaking down fences, they find each other." — "First Intercontinental Encuentro"
The rebels have met. In our first and second Encuentros, rebels who are fighting for dignity and against displacement came together to voice their presence, their rage, their struggle and their dreams. We broke down the fences that power constructs to divide us, we listened to one another’s voices, and we learned from one another.
Now the moment is different. Around the city, the country, and the globe, capitalism is heaving and shaking. We see it showing thin cracks in its concrete walls. We see its self-destruction as it razes its smaller empires. We see it exploit the cynical opportunities it envisions in terrible natural and human disasters. We see its agents rush to the battlefield to crack down on communities rising up to build something different.
We walk along a trembling fault line of resistance and oppression and construct a path towards a future with dignity. With the knowledge of other compañeros and compañeras in this struggle we have walked forward stronger and now we must find ways to support each other.
Here in East Harlem, the giant has fallen. The London based multi-national corporation Dawnay, Day Group bought up an empire of 47 buildings in El Barrio with the intention of displacing our community members from our homes and raising rents by ten-fold. They failed in their mission in the face of years of fierce organized resistance from the tenants of Dawnay, Day that form part of Movement for Justice in El Barrio. They fell victim to their own greed. Now they face foreclosure. Movement for Justice in El Barrio is building an alternative in the ruins.
Across Harlem, the three council members that represent East, Central and West Harlem, millionaire Melissa Mark-Viverito, Inez Dickens and Robert Jackson have time and again joined billionaire Mayor Bloomberg, as he holds on tightly to the reins of power, in planning, promoting, and approving plans that displace our communities.
As we struggle here, we do not forget our sisters and brothers resisting in the far corners of the world. Nor do we forget where we come from and that many of us have already experienced displacement from our homelands. We join the humble and simple people across the world in their resistance as we stand up and join the fight against a global capitalist system that has pushed us to this dignified rage.
In this Third NYC Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement we will hear directly from movements fighting against displacement from across the world:
We will facilitate direct live participation from the South African Shack Dwellers to the Third NYC Encuentro. The South African Shack Dwellers Movement is fighting against displacement under the banner of "Land & Housing in the City." They are standing tall and fighting back against forced removal and continued state repression.
We will also facilitate direct live participation from San Salvador Atenco, Mexico by the Peoples Front in Defense of the Land who will share about their organized creative resistance to protect their land and their culture and to free their political prisoners.
In Haiti, a natural disaster unfolds and amplifies into a man-made disaster from the roots of neoliberal capitalism and from new visions to regenerate its exploitation. We will hear from organized Haitians who have been fighting against displacement for years and will be returning to NYC from Haiti to report directly on the most recent devastation.
Local politicians use their power, influence and money to try to buy-off resistance and pacify dissent. There are those that choose to accept the money of the powerful and ride on the currents of their power. In this Encuentro, we seek to speak directly to those who have chosen to fight against displacement and for dignity from the ground up and who will not be swayed by the seduction of the powerful and their riches.
Power seeks to divide and marginalize us as people of color, as women, as transgender, gay and lesbian, as youth, as the elderly, as workers, as immigrants, as tenants. We must resist division. We must seek to come together.
In this Third Encuentro, we will premiere a documentary of our 2nd NYC Encuentro for Dignity and Against Displacement in which 38 groups came together to share their struggles.
Groups fighting against displacement across New York will share our struggles and use this gathering to find ways to mutually support each other. We will share whatever form of expression we choose, whether it be verbally, through song, poetry or rhyme, through a video, through artwork or however people can best express their struggle.
Please RSVP by Monday, February 15th!!
P.S. Children are especially invited to come break open the "Neoliberal" Piñata!
We will provide dinner, childcare and Spanish/English translation.
Please RSVP by February 15th with the number of adults and children that will be attending, their names and an address at which you would like to receive your tickets.
Once you have RSVP’d you will receive your tickets and more details on the Encuentro.
Who we are:
We are Movement for Justice in El Barrio. We are a group of humble and simple people who fight for justice and for humanity. Movement for Justice in El Barrio is fighting against gentrification in El Barrio, a process that is better understood by we who are affected by it as the displacement of families from their homes for being of low income, immigrants and people of color. We are part of the Zapatista initiated transnational movement called The Other Campaign.
For Movement for Justice in El Barrio, the struggle for justice means fighting for the liberation of women, immigrants, lesbians, people of color, gays and the transgender community. We all share a common enemy and its called neoliberalism. Neoliberalism wishes to divide us and keep us from combining our forces. We will defeat this by continuing to unite all of our communities until we achieve true liberation for all.
