Gepostet von The 1st of January 2024 marks 30 years since the Zapatistas took up arms in the Mexican mountains in 1994. The uprising of the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (Zapatista Army of National Liberation), the EZLN, in San Cristóbal de las Casas and other municipalities of the state of Chiapas, caused surprise in diverse social sectors, particularly among those actors or political leaders from different institutions in Mexico and other parts of the world. After a century of forced displacement and marginalization, the politics of the president Salinas de Gortari, known as the father of neoliberalism in Mexico who signed the NAFTA free trade agreement with the US, which would lead to further massive displacement of people from their lands, were the final straw. The Zapatistas, most of them from indigenous Maya communities, forced the Mexican state to recognize the conditions of abandonment and processes of marginalization which the communities not only in Mexico but Latin-American had been suffering, at a moment when, after the collapse of socialism and the alleged end of the Cold War, all struggle for social change was deemed invalid. By the end of the 20th century our political elites had lulled themselves into a false sense of security they sought in the promises of neoliberalism. The Zapatista resistance has ever since been a symbol of collective struggle against the destructive forces of the capitalocene and the myth of what Fukuyama termed the End of History.
I have been in Mexico since August on exchange. When friends from my faculty started talking about travelling to Chiapas for the celebration of the 30th anniversary it felt unreal at first, a typical moment of serendipity – which pretty much sums up my 2023. I had read about Zapatismo due to the close ties the Kurdish Freedom Movement in Germany has been cementing with the activists in Mexico and last year in March at a conference organized by the Network for an Alternative Quest listened to Marichuy, Mexico´s first indigenous presidential candidate, who spoke on behalf of the indigenous communities and their resistances. Her words and further readings about the Zapatista movement inspired me a lot since I haven´t come across any comparable social movement in Europe, let alone Germany, which actually seeks autonomy from the state.
I convinced a friend from my faculty to join me and we left for Chiapas together with four other comrades, friends of a friend of mine, who we met in Xalapa. The nine-hour car ride gave us plenty of time to get to know each other. We stayed two nights at a hostel in San Cristóbal de las Casas, about five hours from the event location, and went to register in the CIDECI (Centro indígena de Capacitación Integral), an educational center which is primarily dedicated to training young local people from the surrounding communities, which are among the most marginalized in Mexico. In this way, it promotes the autonomy of the local Mayan communities by offering training facilities for various professions. While public education under capitalism mainly seeks to reproduce workforce, the center seeks to provide an integral education – a kind of university for life, „como una Universidad de la Vida“, my friend said.
one of the many wallpaintings at the CIDECI
With our badges ready we left on December 30 in the direction of the Guatemalan border. Despite the security measures we took I felt quite nervous . Equipped with two satellite radios and GPS-sending applications installed we left San Cristóbal de las Casas – nervous because travelling outside touristic places in general is not recommended. Unfortunately the border zone ultimately has increasingly registered cases of kidnappings, homicides, and assaults, under the firm grip networks of narcotrafficking and organized crime have taken on the region. The massive presence of the Mexican military felt quite daunting too. Pick-ups with officers, equipped with rifles, bullet-proof vests, and helmets seemed to be patrolling every single highway and stopped us twice asking for our IDs and searching our vehicle. As a response to the armed uprising in 1994 the Mexican state built various giant military bases, a part of the state´s counter-insurgency campaign which many here describe as a low-intensity war or state terror campaign to stymie the radical potential of the Zapatista movement. For a moment I felt intimidated and discouraged, especially when my friend told me about how unscrupulously the state has ever since been locking up, disappearing, and killing activists as well as journalists.
Suddenly the radio turned on and the driver of another bus which had left from Mexico City told us that they had just been stopped, that masked men took two hostages and robbed everyone´s phones and wallets but that luckily everyone was fine. The crackling sound of the radio broke off and after a couple of seconds in silence my friend decided to change the route. Alert and nervous we continued our journey but fortunately arrived safely to the Caracol VIII Dolores Hidalgo where we would spend the next three days. A Caracol (snail) is an administrative unit under Zapatista government, ruled by a public assembly. In the middle of the mountains of Chiapas covered in fog, and under the humid heat of the Lacandona rainforest I got to spend three days with people from all over the world, filled with many more serendipities – fortuitous encounters which felt unreal. What are the odds that on the other side of the world I would meet a close friend of my best friend in Hamburg? …or familiar faces from the conference in March?
hasta que todo sea como lo soñamos (until everything is the way we dreamt it)
… has been one of the Zapatista slogans, just like „por un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos“ (for a world where many worlds are possible). The Zapatistas remind us that it is possible to rethink the world and the ideologies underlying the discourses on sustainability to combat the systemic ecologial crisis and suggest that taking a stand and organizing politically should be at the center of an education for sustainability that aims at being transformative and radical. Their defense of Indigenous Mayan worldview is paired with an explicit anticapitalist position. While foundational for Western „civilization“ and modernity itself, is the grand narrative of the rational enlightened human, featuring a Cartesian divide between nature and culture, and justifying humanity´s superior right to examine, conquer, and exploit the natural world, the Zapatistas refrain from such a division. Their basic principles can be summed up by the seven seeds of autonomy, namely
servir y no servirse (serve – don´t enrich yourself)
representar y no suplantar (represent – don´t supplant)
construir y no destruir (create – don´t destroy)
obedecer y no mandar (obey – don´t order)
proponer y no imponer (propose – don´t impose)
convencer y no vencer (convince – don´t defeat)
bajar y no subir (dismantle hierarchies)
For decades, the EZLN has informed struggles down and up the continent. Amid climate chaos and endless war, they continue to imagine and create better worlds.
Raúl Zibechi
So activists from Lützerath and the Kurdish Freedom Movement, feminists from Colombia and Brazil, and a delegation from the CNI (National Indigenous Congress) among others made their way to Chiapas, inspired by the long history of indigenous resistance in South-East Mexico. I would describe the celebration as a beautiful confluence of groups asserting autonomy as a political practice which have been developing and growing around the world, undoubtedly with Zapatismo as a point of reference. I was impressed by how incredibly well organized the event was. About 3000 people arrived to commune with each other in the ample valley. My group stayed on the campsite but the Zapatistas also provided dormitories. There were various community kitchens, sanitary facilities, and spaces to hold workshops and film screenings.
What struck me the most was how according to their very own principle of self-organization, people would offer workshops, the collectives presented theater, rap, and dance performances. Groups got together to talk about strategies and shared struggles. Everyone was free to share what they felt like sharing. An atmosphere of radical hope, eargerness to learn and to forge international solidarites dominated the event.
On New Year´s Eve spokesperson Subcomandante Moisés gave a speech with an unmistakable message:“ the people decide and the government obeys, and the means of production are collective“. He spoke about the importance of a collective memory and auto-criticism, a process which as he announed has led the Zapatistas to rethink the organzational structure of the communities. The Juntas de Buen Gobierno (good government councils“ and Caracoles (autonomous municipalities), organizational structures created two decades ago and symbols of Zapatista self-government, have ceased. Instead of 30 autonomous municipalities, there will be thousands of grassroots structures called Gobiernos Autonomos Locales (Local Autonomous Governments) and hundreds of Colectivos de Gobiernos Autonomos Zapatistas (Autonomous Government Collectives) where before there were 12 good government councils.
On January 3 we left Chiapas and headed back to Xalapa. My head felt like it was spinning under all the impressions and encounters. Seeing so many people come together inspired by the conviction that another world is possible filled me with a lot of hope. I got to know some of the most radical people I have ever met. Some of them fought in Kurdistan or in the uprising in Chiapas in 1994. Their stories made me rethink the effectiveness of non-violent protest and legitimacy of armed resistance. If the Zapatista hadn´t taken up arms, they would have lost vast parts of their territories to mega-proyects, foreign investors, or would have been forcibly displaced by the state. However, the stories about rogue state repression and the heavy military presence in the region in response to the uprising in 1994 and down to the present day felt like a sobering reality check. The creative workshops I participated in were beautiful but embroideries and wallpaintings alone won´t save us. The more radical the potential of a movement, the less hesitant the authorities will be to apply violence to contain them. Over the course of 500 years of indigenous resitance the Zapatistas have long understood this. So I really wish movements in Europe sought inspiration in their determination to overcome the gridlock of apathy, state cooptation and lack of radical thought we are facing.
„No existe la palabra esperanza para el que no lucha“ (the word hope doesn´t exist for those who don´t fight)
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