TheJourney for Life is a tour organized by theZapatista Army of National Liberation with the aim of visiting fivecontinents. In 2021, the tour visited Europe.
In October 2020, theZapatista Army of National Liberation announced a plan for the Journey for Life with a communique entitled "Part Six: A Mountain on the High Seas". Twenty years after the March of the Colour of the Earth, in which the Zapatistas made a tour of Mexico, they planned to visit different countries in order to meet other grassroots, left-wing groups and share experiences.[1] The Journey of Life aims to visit all fivecontinents.[2]
Five hundred years after theConquest of Mexico, seven people set off fromIsla Mujeres on 2 May 2021 in a boat called La Montaña, saying their trip to Europe was a symbolic invasion.[3][4] They had travelled fromChiapas to the Caribbean and aimed to arrive inVigo in north-west Spain before 13 August, the date marking five hundred years sinceTenochtitlan was captured by Spanish forces.[3][5] The crew of seven was composed of two men, four women and onenon-binary person (referred to as "otroa" in Spanish[a]). The 4-2-1 formation resulted in the crew being known as the 421st Squadron, in an echo of the201st Fighter Squadron, aMexican Air Force which fought internationally in World War II.[2] The boat got to Vigo on 21 June.[2]
The Zapatistas met activist groups inBarcelona,Madrid,Mérida andValencia in Spain and next went to France, where they visitedAubervilliers,Montreuil and theZone to Defend atNotre-Dame-des-Landes nearNantes.[2] They also planned to visitSámi people protesting against a high-speed train route being constructed betweenRovaniemi inLapland andKirkenes in Norway and groups in Italy mobilising against theTrans Adriatic Pipeline.[2] After four months, Squadron 421 returned toMexico City International Airport in September, meeting members of theNational Indigenous Congress and not giving any statement to the mainstream media.[7]
In a second phase, the "Extemporaneous delegation" of 170 Zapatistas flew toVienna in Austria, on 15 September. It split up into smaller groups which went off to visit any places which had made an invitation. In Sweden, the Zapatistas visitedGothenburg,Jönköping,Malmö,Östersund,Stockholm andUppsala.[8]