07 - Zapatistas commons - ted talk - before the storm - pt 01

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🎙️ “Before the Storm: The Zapatista Common and the Art of Collective Survival”

(Performance Script)

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(Soft light. A low drumbeat fades. You step forward.)

You:
Imagine a storm.

Not of rain —
but of systems collapsing.
Forests burning, democracies hollowed out,
hearts… growing numb with fear.

Everywhere, we’re told: this is the only world possible.

(Pause)

But deep in the mountains of Chiapas,
there’s a different story.
It begins not with power or profit,
but with a gathering —
of people who refuse to forget how to be human.

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(Change in tone: warmer, more grounded.)

They call it El Común Zapatista.
The Zapatista Common.

Not just shared land —
shared being.

In the old Mayan tongue, Jach t’aan,
they say: u juntéelil winikob.
It means the togetherness of people.
It means we exist because we exist together.

In a world obsessed with “I,”
they live by we.
Their schools, their councils, their fields —
are all heartbeats in one living body.

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(Beat — lower voice.)

But the story doesn’t end there.

The Zapatistas speak of a coming storm — la tormenta.
Not a storm of weather,
but of civilization.

They call it u k’aaxil k’áak’náal — the burning forest.
The place where everything we know catches fire.

And what do they do?
They don’t build walls.
They plant roots.

They plant autonomía — autonomy —
the freedom to grow food, make decisions, tell stories
on their own terms.

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(Step forward. Tone firm, alive.)

They teach that resistance is not a shield.
It’s soil.

In their language, k’uxajil means to endure —
to carry pain with patience and dignity.

And ch’úupulil means to rise —
as maize rises through the dark earth.

To endure.
To rise.
This is their revolution —
not to destroy, but to emerge anew.

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(Pause — softer tone.)

And then there’s a word I love: na’atik.
It means “to understand.”
But the root, na’ah, means heart.

To understand is to know with the heart.

They remind us: fascism isn’t just political —
it’s emotional.
It begins when we stop feeling.

So they fight not just with arms,
but with care.
With song.
With the radical act of remembering
that all life is interwoven.

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(Final movement — quiet, rising cadence.)

And now — we all stand before the storm.

The question is not how to stop it,
but how to become forests strong enough to endure it.

The Zapatistas show us that rebellion can be gentle.
That autonomy can be compassionate.
That the future belongs
to those who gather —
and stay.

(Beat. Step forward.)

So maybe the revolution isn’t to fight harder.
Maybe it’s to remember how to live —
together.

To become,
in our own ways,
the common before the storm.

(Silence. Then, a small smile. You step back.)

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