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"The real solidarity is put themselves in the same place than the people we want to help"
Jyri Jaakkola, assassinated together with the companion Bety Carino April 27, 2010, in the caravan of solidarity with the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala.
I would say he had a traveling soul,
because he-was going to meet other people, other languages, other cultures, other religions, always open to listening.
This listen was his greatest asset,
he had ears like snails, sensitive in slightest movement.
I knew Jyri in Europe, we worked together in several organizations,
and at first he seemed a little crazy.
He had ideas that for me are dreams. He wished to go by boat in Mexico, Oaxaca and Chiapas, the poorest states.
He made me believe that we can achieve our dreams, and that's what really touched me.
It'll be learning in many meaning.
Maybe a trip to collect hopes, and another form of seeing the world.
I have a strong presentiment, and everything seems to point in that direction,
that to solve the environmental problem, and other socioeconomic problems,
we need a social and cultural change.
Different technical solutions do not lead to a real solution,
they are only shifting the problem.
Capitalism which is based on continued growth is not sustainable.
This has to change.
I believe that a large part of consumer culture is linked to the lack of opportunities to choose our lives
We are not free, and that's why we consume,
to have the impression to control what happens.
Therefore, we must create new forms of autonomy and freedom.
There is hope, because of the change and experiences of ancient movements
As the uprising in Oaxaca in 2006, and many other alternative anti-capitalist,
and the forms of autonomy developed by the Zapatistas.
There are lots of things, with an infinite number of ingredients to build a different world, and from there comes hope.
These times are strategically important, that's why I want to go there to learn
If my presence can help to moderate the violence, then it is the task I need to make.
"Indigenous peoples in Mexico have the seeds of truthof the hope", it was his great idea,
and he wanted to share these seeds with his people also in Finland.
So what I think is important is to fight and build right here.
The Zapatista autonomy can not be transplanted,
and we can not live like native Mexican.
Here we have our own culture, from which a change must emerge.
We can not duplicate the models, but we can take inspiration and hope
from another world from anywhere.