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NEWS & LETTERS, September-October 2005In-person report:With the Zapatistas: the Sixth Declaration from LacondonaChiapas, Mexico--Far to the south of San Miguel Allende lies another San Miguel, the tzeltal Communidad Autonoma Zapatista. It was to this poblado in Chiapas that hundreds of members of collectives, networks, brigades, anti-groups, non-governmental organizations, and more, came to participate with ideas, activities, songs, poems, photographs and presentations as part of the preparatory dialogue to LA OTRA CAMPANA, (The Other Campaign) proposed by the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional, in their sixth declaration from the Selva Lacondona. This was the fourth of six meetings taking place in different autonomous Zapatista communities as preparatory to The Other Campaign. Meetings have been held with political organizations of the Left, indigenous organizations, and non-governmental organizations and collectives. Why the name LA OTRA CAMPANA? First, to distinguish it sharply from the presidential electoral campaign which occurs every six years, and which is just being launched in Mexico--complete with political maneuvering, empty promises and demagoguery. The fact that the Zapatistas have begun this campaign in a completely different direction than the "progressive" PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution) has upset many on the Left who believe that in 2006, with Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City and presumed candidate of the PRD, a real change in the ruling Mexican society can take place. It is true that when President Fox, with the support of PANists (National Action Party) and PRIists (Party of the Institutional Revolution, the long-time rulers of autocratic, authoritarian, dictatorial Mexico) tried to frame Obrador with politically-motivated legal charges that would have made him ineligible to run for President, Mexico City residents by the hundreds of thousands marched earlier this year in a huge protest which forced the dropping of the charges. But this does not take away from the fact that the PRD is far from representing an authentic left alternative. As Subcommandante Marcos, spokesperson for the Zapatistas, pointed out: 1) PRD members in Congress cooperated with PRI and PAN members to scuttle the San Andres accord that the Zapatistas and indigenous groups negotiated with the Zedillo government--a complete betrayal of indigenous rights. 2) In the years since 1994, sections of the PRD in Chiapas have assisted the government and private paramilitaries in terrorizing and murdering Zapatista supporters. 3) Many PRD leaders had their origins in the authoritarian PRI. To those who cry that to oppose the PRD means to pave the way for the return of the PRI, the answer the Zapatistas give is first, since when has the PRI really left power, and second, that they are opposed to all the political parties--PRD, PAN, PRI and others--but are not telling people who to vote for or who not to vote for. Thus LA OTRA CAMPANA is truly a campaign of the Other--of those without voice, the marginalized, the despised, the rejected, the invisible in the countryside, and those among indigenous communities, especially the behemoth that is Mexico City, with its hundreds of thousands in factories and small workshops and neighborhoods struggling in the informal economy. A NEW STEP FORWARD The sixth Selva Lacondona is perhaps the most significant document issued by the Zapatistas since 1994. Its six parts--1) What We Are; 2) Who We Are Now; 3) How We See the World; 4) How We See Our Country Which Is Mexico; 5) What We Want To Do; 6) How We Are Going To Do It--are being read, discussed and debated throughout the country, in small meetings and large gatherings, in newspapers and magazines, in informal discussions and round table discussions. I have attended a dozen or more such discussions in Mexico City in the last four weeks. Even meetings that do not have the "sixth" as the main topic inevitably turn toward its contents in one manner or another. "What We Are" is a history of the Zapatistas since 1994, expressed in a straightforward, unadorned language. "Where We Are Now" speaks of what has happened since the breakdown of negotiations over the San Andres agreements. They write of indigenous communities: "We began encouraging the autonomous rebel Zapatista municipalities--which is how the peoples are organized to govern and govern themselves--to make themselves stronger. This method of autonomous government was not simply invented by the EZLN, but rather it comes from several centuries of indigenous resistance and from the Zapatistas’ own experience. It is the self-governance of the communities. In other words, no one from the outside comes to govern, but the peoples themselves decide, among themselves, who governs and how, and if they do not obey, they are removed. If the one who governs does not obey the people, they pursue them, they are removed from authority, and another comes in." With this comes a self-critique. They recognize that the political-military of the Zapatista soldiers is not democratic and cannot be the way of the autonomous municipalities. They have moved to separate the political-military from the autonomous and democratic aspects of organization of the Zapatista communities: "Actions and decisions which had previously been made and taken by the EZLN were being passed, little by little, to the democratically elected authorities in the villages... it is our way to do what we say, because, if not, why should we go around saying things if we do not then do them." In Chiapas today more than 1,100 autonomous communities in support of the Zapatistas exist. They are grouped into 30 autonomous municipalities by region. These comprise five juntas of good government or caracoles (literally shells of the sea or snails). The juntas of government are made up of representatives from the municipalities, who are in turn drawn from members of the indigenous autonomous communities. Perhaps this experience of governance of the autonomous communities, municipalities, and juntas of good government will bring to LA OTRA CAMPANA, not an "answer" for other parts of the country, but a methodology, an experience, a form of organization that others can re-create in their own ways in other parts of the country in their own concrete circumstances. They speak of the villages as making good progress with women and men learning to govern: "Even though little by little--there are more women going into this work, but there is still a lack of respect for the companeras, and they need to participate more in the work of the struggle." They speak as well of the youth who have participated over these dozen years: "New generations have renewed our entire organization," including holding leadership positions. The Zapatistas end in a sober fashion: "To our way of thinking, and what we see in our heart, we have reached a point where we cannot go any further, and, in addition, it is possible that we could lose everything we have if we remain as we are and do nothing more in order to move forward. The hour has come to take a risk once again and to take a step which is dangerous but which is worthwhile. Because perhaps united with other social sectors who suffer from the same wants as we do, it will be possible to achieve what we need and what we deserve. A new step forward in the indigenous struggle is only possible if the indigenous join together with workers, campesinos, students, teachers, employees...the workers of the city and the countryside." In "How We See the World," the Zapatistas provide an analysis of capitalism as a social system. They see production of commodities as the center of capitalism, which makes "commodities of people, of nature, of culture, of history, of conscience." Against the globalization of capitalism, "a neoliberal globalization," the Zapatistas pose "a globalization of rebellion": "It is not just the workers of the countryside and of the city who appear in this globalization of rebellion, but others also appear who are much persecuted and despised for the same reason, for not letting themselves be dominated, like women, young people, the indigenous, homosexuals, lesbians, transsexual persons, migrants and many other groups who exist all over the world but who we do not see until they shout ya basta of being despised, and they rise up, and then we see them, we hear them, and we learn from them." In "How We See Our Country Which Is Mexico," the Zapatistas take up how the neo-liberals who govern Mexico "are destroying our nation, our Mexican Patria." They see the need to do something about the "warped" constitution. They find workers in the countryside mobilizing and organizing; workers in the city fighting against their rights being taken away or their jobs privatized; students fighting on the question of education; and "women who do not let themselves be treated as an ornament or be humiliated and despised just for being women." This is the Mexico the Zapatistas see, "and we think that perhaps our ‘we’ will include all these rebellions." In "What We Want To Do," they speak to the whole world: "We are going to look at how to help you in your struggles and to speak to you in order to learn, because what we have, in fact, learned is to learn." For Mexico the Zapatistas want to make "an agreement with persons and organizations just of the Left, because we believe that it is in the political Left where the ideas of resisting neo-liberal globalization is." They sharply separate themselves from electoral politics. The illusion of electoral change remains great in Mexico. Perhaps there is a need to explore more deeply the situation in Brazil where Lula, an authentic man of the Left came to power, only to find himself in the whirlpool of neo-liberalism and willing to play that kind of politics. If an authentic left movement can come crashing down in that manner, what can be said of the situation in Mexico, where the PRD is hardly a Left? The final part of the Declaration, "How We Are Going To Do It," provides modest proposals to rebuild another way of doing politics. To these ends the Zapatistas propose to do their work together with others throughout Mexico and to do so for an indefinite period of time. They do so not with any "answer" but to build from below and for below an alternative of the Left for Mexico. One weakness, or better said a challenge, is the question of the Mexican working class. In this meeting, and I believe in the others before, there was little participation from unionized Mexican workers. In their unions they face a huge brake upon their activities. The unions, corrupt and tied to the party politics of the PRI, have long been the enforcers of labor discipline for the Mexican state and capitalists. Yet it is precisely the Mexican working class that LA OTRA CAMPANA needs in fusion with all the other forces that the Zapatistas name. The Zapatistas are more than aware of this. It remains to be seen how this can be worked out in the period ahead. But there is no doubt from many spontaneous actions that the Mexican working class is restless. For three decades the division between rich and poor has grown in Mexican society, and it is the employed, unemployed, struggling in the informal economy who have felt the brunt of it. Finally a few words on the indigenous peoples. One thing I noticed that seemed different to me from the time of "Intergalactic Encuentro" I attended in the mid-1990s is that at that time at least in the community of La Realidad, there seemed a sharp separation between an indigenous community which labored mightily to put us up, feed us, and more and the participants, nationally and internationally. The meetings found very, very few indigenous people listening, and then only on the sidelines. But here in San Miguel, in the aftermath of the development of autonomous communities and juntas of good government, the indigenous community were very much participants in the dialogue. Perhaps a small indication of journeys in the days of Zapatismo --Participant, August 30, 2005 * * * New edition! Filosofía y revolucíon: De Hegel a Sartre y de Marx a
Mao, por Raya Dunayevskaya |
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