If a few women come then at least there will be a few. It’s a philosophy.

Last Wednesday found me traipsing the state of Chiapas. It was perhaps a futile adventure, depending on the perspective you adopt. From before sunup until after the last once of gray light drained out of the evening sky I drove and drove between the rural towns of southern Chiapas to meet with six women of the Independent Movement of the Women of Chiapas (MIM in its spanish initials).

The MIM was founded in the 1990’s as the women of Chiapas began to popularly assemble around political issues such as the modification of article 4 and 27 of the Mexican constitution, then held the State Convention of Women (Convención Estatal de Mujeres) following the 1994 zapatista National Democratic Conference (Convención Nacional Democrática), in the late 90´s moved on to organized resistance to the imperialist wars in Iran, Kosovo and Afganistan and convened a notable 1999 march that denounced violence against women and which people from 30 different state municipalities attended. The MIM was formally inaugurated on November 25th of 2002.

The MIM is self-defined as a space of struggle for women’s rights and for equality between men and women. It is a movement that seeks to confront violence against women, that denounces neo-liberal and neo-colonialial projects such as the Plan Puebla Panama and that pursues the right of women to the land. Concomitantly, the movement seeks the autonomy of the indigenous peopls of Mexico and the inactment of the San Andres Acords, denounces militarization and paramilitarization and strives toward the creation of a dignified life for all, with democracy, justice, liberty and peace.

March 8th is International Women’s Day. This year the women of Chiapas are converging in San Cristóbal de las Casas on March 8th to publicly celebrate. It’s rumoured that it will be a demonstration escandaloso, complete with placards, banners, noise-makers and general revelry. Following the March the women will retire to a three day conference on the grounds of CIDECI, the autonomously run indigenous university of San Cristóbal.

It was in preparation for this state-wide convergence of women that I spent my Wednesday in perpetual transit. In Chiapas, where modern luxuries of communication such as internet and telephones are sometimes sparsely available, organization still depends on physical presence and human conversation.

Sitting in the living rooms of the women of MIM, standing in their chicken yards, or seated beyond the counter of their fruit stands in the central market, from Comitan to Comalapa, I was struck by the poise, generosity, and wisdom of the women, as well as their personal diversities and their disparate manners of life. Some of the women lived in rural hamlets, pillars of their families. Other women owned businesses, lived in the cities, appeared to forge their lives alone. All had years and years of involvement in the social struggles of the women of Chiapas.

In all, I met with six women on Wednesday. Some would say its not enough – hundreds of kilometres of distance covered and over 12 hours of travel simply to speak with six women. But this is how we go; slowly and with hope. We went planting seeds, small littles seeds in the hands of women who are full of passion, self-composure and political will.

On March 8th, if even a few women come, then at least there will be a few of us.

~lila~