A few days before the start of the 31st year since they declared war on the Mexican government, the leadership of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) made public, in person, an exercise of analysis and self-reflection on their movement. They reiterated that their anti-capitalist struggle and their objective is to forge a better future for the next generations.
At the meeting and training center called CIDECI (Integral Center for Indigenous Community Development), one of the headquarters of the EZLN, hundreds of young Zapatistas came to the “Encounter of Resistance and Rebellion.” Also arriving were old and new members of the General Command of the movement that on January 1st, 1994 came to the public light to declare war on the Mexican government.
The meeting was attended by scholars of social movements from Mexico and the world, and people who, individually or as part of a collective, see the EZLN as a reference for the struggle to generate life projects that do not follow the dynamics of the capitalist development model.
During the first session of the meeting, the multiple social crises that the capitalist development model – based on the exploitation of natural resources, the conquest of territories and the domination of the population – has caused to ecosystems and humanity were discussed; and the differentiated impact that it is having on indigenous peoples, where most of the natural resources such as water, minerals and oxygen are concentrated.
Specialists such as Jorge Alonso, John Holloway, Carlos Aguirre Rojas, Iván Prado, Carlos González, Jacobo Dayán, Bárbara Zamora, Inés Durán and Raúl Romero, spoke of the strategy of capitalism: creating urgent problems to justify the militarization of territories.
They also explained that a key player in this strategy is so-called organized crime. Lawyer Barbara Zamora and Carlos González, from the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), gave concrete examples of how the mining and extractive industry uses these criminal groups and drug cartels to take over territories and subjugate the population.
They explained that in Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacán, among other states, these criminal groups have gained space in the government structures of the communities and in elected positions at the three levels of government.
The Zapatistas and other people who met listened for two days to the experiences and analysis of these processes; they concluded that reversing this trend, proposing new forms of development that are not capitalist, will take several generations.
The Zapatista alternative to capitalism
Members of the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee, the leadership of the EZLN, explained the process they call “the common process”; a process they are carrying out in the communities where they have a presence. It is a form of community work and collective use of resources.
To explain how this proposal was born, they made an analysis of their own history from 100 years ago, from when their ancestors lived in a system of exploitation as laborers on landowners’ farms.
One of the women commanders, a woman in her 30s of Tseltal origin, explained that, as Zapatistas, they analyzed the way in which their grandmothers and grandfathers managed to escape from the farms where they were exploited as laborers, with no more salary than a little food; and where women suffered sexual abuse from the landowners.
“Some wanted to run away, but one by one, the foreman caught up with them and killed them (…) they began to gather together, to talk; they decided to leave in a group, in a throng, to escape injustice. The boss could no longer catch up with them, he saw their strength,” she explained.
The next thing her ancestors did – she said – was to plant the cornfield in common, to make our bean field in common, “so that the boss would not come to take us again. In common, in a throng as we say, we have that strength. That is how we got the idea of how in a group, in a throng, we can do something.”
Commander David, for his part, explained the process that landowners and the government subsequently carried out, to deconstruct this communality or form of collective production. He spoke about the imposition that peasants register their production lands, and the subsequent reforms to the law and the Constitution to promote the disappearance of collective property and encourage private property, the sale of the lands they occupy, which led to a new process of hoarding land in a few hands, and the imposition of extractive projects.
“It made us individual (…) That is why, as an organization, as Zapatistas, we are thinking about what will become of the lives of future generations, where they will live, where they will work if the land and natural resources are plundered,” he said.
“For us, the only way to survive, so that the new generations can live, is for the lands to become common again, so that they are for the benefit of all, so that we do not kill each other for a piece of land. That is why a year ago we said no to property, no to land hoarding,” he explained.
30 years of successes and mistakes
The Zapatistas explained that this process they undertook after 30 years since the armed uprising in 1994 also involves a new form of self-government that they began only this year, 2024; a proposal that was reached after a self-criticism of their own trajectory over the past three decades.
They went from having a pyramidal and hierarchical government structure at the top of which were the Good Government Councils with a few people in charge, to establishing local governments with collective representations, and a large representative assembly, in which decisions are made, explained Sub-commander Moisés.
One of the women commanders narrated that the pyramidal form of government prevented them from training young people to renew the leadership and train them in collective work; it prevented agreements from being made with the participation of all people, and caused an imbalance in the distribution of resources.
On the other hand, in the recounting of the past 30 years, the Zapatistas recognized that they have had many successes. “Thanks to the blood of our comrades who fell in the war of 1994, we discovered and conquered the freedom to govern autonomously. After 500 years, we discovered what good government of the people should be like,” said another of the EZLN commanders.
He spoke of their achievements in matters of justice, democracy, collective participation, equality between men and women, the solidarity economy and the ability to correct errors.
“We saw what the evils are and what the good things are (…) thanks to that, those 30 years of the practice of our autonomy, we discovered another way of governing, another path, another way of life where we say, there is more life.”
The Captain is moved
The former Sub-commander Marcos, who for a time called himself Galeano in honor of a murdered Zapatista leader, the now self-named Captain Marcos, coordinated the conversations and analysis; during these two days of the Encounter he took time to take “selfies” with members of civil society and with young Zapatistas who also asked to have a photograph with him.
Captain Marcos had to recount the three decades that have passed since the 1994 uprising, a recollection that moved him to the point of breaking his voice.
He said that what he narrates in this meeting about the Zapatista movement, he wrote a year before, on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the uprising. But, he said, he had not made it public until he expected deserters from Zapatismo and other people who claim to be specialists who know the movement to make statements about Zapatismo “as if we were incapable of telling our own story,” usurping the word and the history.
He recalled that, against all odds of success, before 1994 the Zapatista communities decided to begin the armed struggle, betting above all that the Mexican government did not believe that a group of indigenous people were capable of making a military offensive because of the contempt they had for them and, therefore, despite the fact that in the jungle there was already talk of war, the uprising would be a surprise for them.
“That is why the surprise paralyzed them, not only because of the movements and attacks that they involved, but above all because they realized who the protagonists were,” said the Captain.
“Night reigned, death, oblivion, abandonment; poorly armed, poorly fed, poorly equipped, but with a mixture of rage and desperation, we went out to snatch a little piece of light from the night, something, even if it was small, that would light up the night.”
“Desperation has reasons that reason does not know and yes, desperation was what led us to do what we did, but it was an organized desperation,” he said almost jokingly.
Then, he narrated that the years passed, the government wanted to forget them, the journalists who arrived left, many of the people and organizations in solidarity also left, but their movement continued.
“How many times have they declared us dead?” he asked.
“The generation of 94, several men and women of that generation, the one that took up arms 31 years ago, is here today, it is the same one that laid the foundations of autonomy in resistance.”
Captain Marcos explained that the Zapatistas not only persist, but that they extended their relations and their movement in other countries, where they also traveled to learn about other movements of people like them.
“And well, here we are, in a small corner of a remote geography, but with relatives all over the world of all colors, all languages, all races, all sizes, all genders and all manners.”
“We, the Zapatista peoples, we, the smallest, have history, culture, language and our own light. We are clear about who our ears are for and who our words are for, who our heart is for and who tomorrow is for.”
“We have a cause that is that of life and we have a name. We are the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and terrible and wonderful things will shine under that name,” he said.
On January 1st, 2025, the EZLN will celebrate 31 years since the armed uprising, and for the celebration it called for a meeting in the Oventic community.
Original article by Ángeles Marisacl, Chiapas Paralelo, December 30th, 2024.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.