Category: Contemporary violence

Carlos Mendoza Alvarez | San Sebastian | Sot'sleb, Chiapas | 2026

The arrows of Saint Sebastian Lights and shadows of a Zinacantecan festival

By Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez

One of the emblematic martyrs of the time of Roman persecution in the beginnings of Christianity, pierced by arrows in his naked and vulnerable body, has been venerated for seventeen hundred years by diverse peoples who recognize in Saint Sebastian humanity mortally wounded by empires that supplant divine glory.

In the Highlands of Chiapas, the saints are adorned with flowery cloaks, colorful ribbons, and mirrors that reflect alternate worlds where the Ch'ulel It dwells, with its avatars that protect or threaten those who approach its spheres of power. In Chamula, according to oral history, the saints can be punished for a time if they do not respond to the pleas of their faithful devotees: they are placed against a wall for a while, until their grace manifests itself. I have not found that custom in the lands of Sot'sleb, or place of bats, known as Zinacantán, a name documented by the famous anthropologist and linguist Robert Laughlin. But I have been surprised by the profusion of life in the garments with which they adorn the images of the saints: the Christ of Esquipulas, the Guadalupana, Saint Jude, Saint Lawrence and Saint Sebastian are the images that increase their clothing for their annual festival, in an overabundance of colors and textures that leave their faces and hands exposed, with their bodies imperceptible before such a profusion of life.

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What lies behind so much flowery beauty? How can I approach with devotion those images that transcend the ordinary in such an avalanche of flowers and decorations that sometimes seem to overwhelm those we reverently invoke?

I found the key in the arrows of San Sebastián during its three days of popular festival in the municipal capital of Zinacantán.

People from all the surrounding areas and neighboring towns flood the streets of the village and the plaza next to the church of the martyred saint in a lively festival that blends ancestral traditions like the jaguar tree with fleeting horse races. Asking the young catechists about the meaning of these traditions... performances Today, I heard different interpretations, more or less confused, which always concluded with the laconic phrase: “it is the custom”The jaguar climbs the trunk of a tree that was chosen a year in advance in the sacred hills The surrounding area. This tree is visited and venerated three times by those in charge of the tradition before being cut down and taken to the center of the plaza. During the festival, the trunk becomes the center of a ritual that commemorates the three days of darkness spent praying for rain and abundant harvests. From this trunk, standing upright in the ground, a man dressed as a jaguar—wearing a suit of Chinese fabrics crudely imitating the skin of the rain guardian—throws stuffed squirrels and eggs to the crowd gathered around, accompanied by young people dressed in black who play and dance as a troupe during the festival rituals. The horse race runs along the main avenue at the beginning of the day and again in the afternoon, recalling, according to some, the arrival of the Spanish—a memory that marks the time and space of the festival brought by the friars?

During those days, like stepping back in time, the popular festival blends traditional dance and music—performed with deliberate slowness before the Tsotsil green altar of the Three Crosses, where the image of Saint Sebastian is placed—with the deafening roar of the band in the bandstand, which overwhelms those present but provides the perfect soundtrack for the celebration. And at night, everyone eagerly awaits the Sinaloan band concert, when the thumping drums mingle with the firecrackers and fireworks displays prepared to light up the sky.

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Amidst that endless surge of color, sound, and movement, I pause to approach the saint who is the reason for the festivities. I look for him on the altar in the atrium and then inside the church at the main altar. In both places, I can barely make out his face. Through his vestments, an arrow pierces his arm. And there is no way to see his lacerated body.

Then I recall conversations I've had in past and recent years with young Indigenous people from diverse sexual orientations who have confided in me about their suffering from living in the shadows in their communities. It was unimaginable for them to be able to celebrate San Sebastián as their patron saint, to be part of the celebration, as so many Catholic communities around the world do. They celebrate it only in the silence of their hearts and their prayers. And I realize the arrows that continue to pierce the wounded body of the martyr. The vulnerable bodies of these young people today are adorned with floral fabrics, like everyone else in the community, but those bodies are not recognized in their difference by an ancestral culture to this day.

I wonder if those bodies that live in the shadows today will one day be able to come into the light, with the love and responsibility that calls us all, as other Indigenous cultures have done for centuries. Years ago, the same question arose in conversations with women from the Zapatista grassroots and civil society who were forging a path in their own personal and communal histories to be recognized as life partners, living together as mothers with their children, and with a clear community and political commitment to defend their peoples. Today, the Zapatista narrative speaks to us of others –as he masterfully recounts Sylvia Marcos by exploring gender fluidity in Mesoamerica - finally making visible the experience of different lives and bodies as valuable and essential voices in the human symphony and the world to come.

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With a burning heart I sow a candle in front of San Sebastián in the name of those young people so that they may soon emerge of the shadows of the shadows of the shadows and live their lives joyfully in the midst of the community.

The lights and shadows of the San Sebastián festival continue to be a revelation and a concealment that calls us to see with wide-open eyes the world around us where divine and human glory bursts forth as a promise of life for all.

Sots'leb, January 24, 2026

Note: I look forward to your comments below to continue the conversation.

January 24, 2026
Antún Kojtom | Guardian of Mirrors | Tenejapa, Chiapas | 2021

Rejoice, desolate humanity

By Carlos Mendoza Álvarez

In the era of the Monroe Doctrine 2.0, launched last week for the “Western Hemisphere” by the global despot as National Security Strategy From the United States, it seems foolish to talk about joy.

Some analysts, such as Michel Ignatieff, predict the end of the West along with the the civilizational erasure of Europe. Today, something is at stake. global geopolitical strategy With areas of power divided among the three dominant military and economic powers—the United States, China, and Russia—each brazenly administering a region of the planet for its own benefit, the military intelligence apparatuses of the United States and the other powers are already in operation to control entire populations and their territories through a vast military-digital system, subjugating individuals and nations that choose to oppose the might of the Maga empire and its counterparts.

The creation of Western Hemisphere Command The deployment of the U.S. military, announced by the Trump administration this week, is part of a geopolitical strategy that has already declared war on mass immigration within its borders. It is also worth highlighting the war already underway against drug cartels, which are portrayed as terrorist groups threatening U.S. security, regardless of the civilian "collateral damage" that this new colonialism will cause, as the Israeli state has already demonstrated in Palestine before the astonished eyes of the world. The strategy of constantly threatening new tariffs that Trump has used in his first year in office has been another attempt to promote a new mode of deglobalization which seeks to subordinate the economies of its "backyard" now called the "western hemisphere" to the interests of the transnational corporations that sustain its wealth.

The nations that for centuries were swallowed up in the Western Hemisphere during early modernity will now be trapped in the web of the voracious monster's hegemonic power. But that giant has feet of clay and one day it will fall. Until then, the destruction it leaves in its wake will be a cause of desolation on a planetary scale. Such a scenario is what Nelson Maldonado-Torres calls the Great Catastrophe —a concept I develop in a collective book on political philosophy and theology that I am currently preparing for an American publisher— seems unrelated to a reflection on the joy What could humanity expect in this hour of global misfortune? But it is precisely the only place where it is possible to speak of a meaning that transcends the apparent immeasurability of the evil that stalks us.

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Tomorrow, Christian communities will celebrate the third Sunday of Advent, known as Gaudete. The name comes from a poem by an anonymous disciple of the prophet Isaiah in Babylon, announcing to Jerusalem, the desolate city, that the time of its liberation after the exile had arrived: Gaudete Ierusalem,Rejoice, Jerusalem! (Isaiah 66:10). Like echoes of that ancient voice of resistance, the same song could also resonate in today's exiles, with new melodies according to the genius of each era and culture, as in the case of the Palestinian people, whom we will evoke at the end of these lines.

Christianity discovered centuries later the radical motive and scope of the joy of the messianic proclamation, extending God's closeness not only to the desolate Hebrew city, but to all. messianic communities scattered throughout the Roman diaspora of that time, who have now entered the new era thanks to faith in the redeeming God, according to the words of the apostle Paul (Philippians 4:4-7):

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

Let your kindness be evident to all.

The Lord is near.

Don't worry about anything […].

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

He will guard their hearts and their thoughts in the Messiah Jesus.

It is about God's consolation for the little ones of the Kingdom of Heaven. They live in the interrupted time Precisely at the heart of the catastrophe. A way of existing that the dispossessed of the earth experience in their lives in a way messianic, That is, as a power to untie the knots of hatred and resentment in their bodies and territories. It is possible to perceive that murmur of a peaceful present amidst desolation in the Gregorian chant antiphon for this third Sunday of Advent, which is known precisely as Rejoice in the Lord.

But let's turn to our own time. Who can proclaim such hope today amidst global desolation? Paradoxically, it is the victims themselves who possess that hope. power. Something that executioners will never have because their hearts have been paralyzed and are incapable of opening to joy until they reach the depths of their own desolation and annihilation. This is how Daniela Rea and Pablo Ferri describe it in the book The Troop: Why Does a Soldier Kill? by interviewing hitmen in Mexico who have come to terms with their crimes. In a collective way, the Houses of Memory which promoted in recent years in Colombia the Truth Commission They bear witness to that complex process of moving from violence to peace, based on the strength of the victims summoning the perpetrators, in order to open paths to transitional justice in a country that suffered more than thirty years of war, with four hundred and fifty thousand dead and almost eight hundred thousand internally displaced persons.

In such experiences of transforming systemic violence from the margins of society, thanks to the persistence of individuals and communities of survivors, it is possible to receive the good news of Sunday. Gaudete from Christian liturgy as a call to learn to live an ethic of care and a summons to cultivate a spirituality of mutual accompaniment among survivors, both processes enriching each other to pave the way for fighting hope.

Therefore, there is a change in tone in the hopelessness. From the purple of Advent, which symbolizes desolation, we move today to pink, the luminosity of consolation that emerges from the shadows like a small but real spark, illuminating everyone, like the painting by the Mayan artist Antún Kojtom that accompanies this post. other tonality, typical of messianic times, arises thanks to the victims who establish the sorry, That is, the overabundance of the gift. A realistic hope that does not mean blindness to evil and its perpetrators, nor a renunciation of accountability and justice, but rather a reinvention of violent history based on the overabundance of love that recreates the world.

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A new way of existing which is no longer just desolation. Nor mere resistance. But the creation of something new, Amid the ruins, from the scars left by violence, but which are transfigured as a glimmer of hope and joy: “After two hundred and fifty years of the occupation of the white settlers we are still here and that is why there is hope,” said smiling Cecelia Firethunder, shaman and historian of the Lakota people, at the past Re-existe 2025 meeting in Guadalajara.

It is a joy that also arises as rebellious imagination from the rubble turned into a home by the Sumud or the creative resistance experienced by the Palestinian people who never tire of waiting, as the Tunisian artist sings. Emel Mathlouthi walking through the streets of an occupied Palestine:

Broken hope

deep

furious

friendly

deceptive

that penetrates arduous times

eternal

happy

unwavering

new

A hope that fills my life and renews it.

Thanks to the acts of resistance of the victims to the violence of today's global power, we can say with profound joy, without triumphalism, and with great courage: Rejoice, Gaza! Rejoice, desolate humanity! For the day of our liberation is near.

Zinacantán, December 13, 2025

Note: I look forward to reading your comments about possible hope today in the section below this post.

December 13, 2025
Ghandi's Dandi (Salt) March, 2012

To march or not to march, that is the question

By Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez

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In recent weeks, Mexico has been the scene of social unrest stemming from the population's weariness with the violence of drug cartels that increasingly control more and more territory. The state of Michoacán has become the epicenter of this violence against the population, particularly against avocado and lime producers who hold that cursed "green gold" in their hands.The less glamorous side of Mexico's new 'green gold'This is devastating environmental and social systems. It is an expression of the predatory economy that is part of the extractive society in which we have been trapped for decades worldwide. The political class tries in vain to promote regional development plans with great media impact, but with few results for the victims and many alliances that maintain "stability" in the region to consolidate the privileges of criminal mafias.

As analysts of similar cases of narco-economies, such as Colombia decades ago and now Mexico, had already predicted (Terrorism and organized crimeWhat is happening is an escalation of violence perpetrated by criminal networks, which first affects local populations and then rises to reach the political and business classes in order to increase profits, political power, and control over territories. Even the United States government is intimately familiar with these criminal networks and manipulates them as it benefits its role as guarantor of democracy in the world within a new "multipolar order" (Trump is making a grave strategic error if he thinks he can divide the world with authoritarian powers and achieve peace.) negotiated with the authoritarian regimes of China and Russia.

Ordinary citizens—an expression often applied today to the most dangerous professions, such as journalism and, unfortunately, academic life in universities subject to censorship—are left bewildered, defenseless, and astonished by this avalanche of insecurity, crimes in public squares, and false promises from the authorities. The churches, for their part, attempt, without much success, to promote "peace plans," or better yet, "pacification" plans, to restore the broken social fabric. As I mentioned in my previous post a few days ago... National Dialogue for Peace which the Catholic Church has been promoting for three years in an unusual alliance between the Mexican episcopate, religious orders and Christian-inspired civil organizations.

The problem that arises in initiatives coming from the political, business, and religious spheres is the subject. That is, the communities in their own places of life seem to be absent as actors in the proposals. Because what is urgent is "the refounding of Mexico from the perspective of the victims," as Javier Sicilia has insisted for the last fifteen years.Open letter from Javier Sicilia to López Obrador).

Today, perhaps, heeding the many voices that have emerged from the tragedies caused by systemic violence, we could say that it is a matter of embracing the diversity of autonomies (subjective, territorial, political, and even religious) to reclaim "the political" from below. This is the central theme of the collective book in preparation for the American publisher Orbis Books, which I am coordinating with the splendid editorial support of Nathan Wood-House and Francis Boccuzzi.

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Last Sunday I attended the march called by the Hat Movement from Michoacán, founded by the assassinated mayor Carlos Manzo. Some groups joined these protests, which took place in thirty-five cities across the country. Generation Z which represents the digital nomadic youth who have already shaken centers of power around the world, such as in Nepal and Peru. Some twenty thousand people attended in Mexico City, with a toll of more than one hundred injured (Generation Z will decide the next elections in Mexico), where there were violent disturbances at the end of the march in the Zócalo, caused by hooded people trying to enter the National Palace, where they were repelled by riot police, after they knocked down one of the immense metal fences with which the authorities had "protected" the emblematic building of the central power of the country. Eighteen people were arrested And eight of them are in pretrial detention facing charges for threatening the lives of some guards who were beaten and injured, like many other people at the march that no one talks about, some of them without having been involved in any violent action.

Although the facts and the legal procedures still need to be clarified, this growing social unrest remains, turning into indignation and peaceful, sometimes violent, protest against a government that is paralyzed, if not colluding, with the aforementioned mafias.

Last Thursday, November 20, the national anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, the protests of the Generation Z They were held again in several cities across the country, with particular anger expressed once more in the main public square of the nation's capital.

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To march or not to march, that is the question that citizens in Mexico and the world are asking themselves today as an existential, ethical, political and spiritual question to express their weariness with the multiple heads of the hydra of necropower that have taken over the world.

Political parties and churches claim to "represent" the people, but they have lost credibility. Civil society organizations have been overwhelmed by the tides of insecurity, impunity, and terror.

What is left to do amidst the ruins of a nation-state overwhelmed by the powers of today's extractive capitalism?

Marching in public squares as citizens in peaceful resistance is the path that many peoples in modern times have followed as a form of profound social transformation.

A symbol of this social journey—still alive in modern memory—is the famous Salt March Gandhi began this journey almost a century ago, in 1930, starting with a handful of eighty people, marching from Ahmedabad to the Guarat coast, gathering more people along three hundred kilometers to protest against the British Empire in a centuries-old site of oppression for India's poor. By the end of that year, sixty thousand people had joined the protest, which became the turning point that paved the way for India's independence.

In Mexico, Pietro Ameglio (Civil disobedience and other texts ) has kept alive the memory and reflection on that ethical and political act of civil disobedience, in the context of the March for Peace with Justice and Dignity initiated in April 2011. Some will say that —almost fifteen years after that outcry— Mexico is still lost, falling into the chaos of a failed state produced by necropower.

Others of us today advocate returning to the source of the "autonomies" that arise in liberated subjectivities, bodies, and territories, where human beings take root, flourish, and die to endure; this is the clue proposed by the anti-systemic thinking of the Cuernavaca School.

At its mystical core, the only way to halt the spiral of hatred is by exposing one's own body. This is how Saint Paul described it when referring to Christ: "He broke down the wall of hatred in his own body" (Ephesians 2:14). This is the quintessential messianic gesture, pristinely experienced by Jesus of Nazareth on a horrific cross imposed by the Roman Empire with the complicity of the religious authorities of the Temple in Jerusalem. A tragic destiny, but not a final one, because that offered life was transformed by his heavenly Abba and by his community of survivors into a seed of new life.

Ultimately, these are autonomous regions with a mystique of a fulfilling life, born from the excluded of all times. That is the march of dignity that never ends.

To march or not to march.

The question remains open for us today.

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Oaxaca, November 22, 2025

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Note: I would appreciate your feedback at the end of this page.

November 22, 2025

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